Children of Sin
by Nugtrio
Summary: Spira is embracing its eternal calm and evolving towards becoming more of a modern society, but there may be a few growing pains that follows.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This story is mainly written because I don't like how some of the authors portrays Yuna's character, NOT that they didn't do a great job, a lot of them did, it's just my personally preference. I have written short stories in the past but have never written a fanfiction so this will be my first attempt. This chapter may be a little short and slow in some people's opinions, but that's because I'm trying to do an intro to what I picture Spira as after X-2 and because I'm trying to pace the story a bit. I have a rough direction as to the where storyline is going but I would not mind PM's if you guys feel that it's a bit off. I am very careful when it comes to grammar and spelling and using the RIGHT words (I'm talking to those who don't know that "your" implies possession). Lastly I go to university in an engineering program so don't be surprised if I don't update, but I promise that I will finish this story. Enjoy and please R&R.

Disclaimer: I own NOTHING in the Final Fantasy franchise. Good job SquarEnix for making these games.

Chapter 1

"Ahhhhh...!", came a long, blood-curdling scream. It would have been quite impressive to for such a tiny girl to have the lung capacity for such a prolonged, high-pitched shriek had it not been the pack of wolf-like fiends bearing down on her. It had been such a nice day outside in Kilika, the first in many weeks. The monsoon season was long this year, so although Kilika didn't get the worst of it, being cooped-up in their little straw house still took its toll on the siblings. When the sunny weather finally broke out, Liza's big brother just had to drag the two of them out for an afternoon of running and laughing in the forest.

Now Liza is frozen with fear, her eyes torn between the pack of fiends in front of her and the lifeless body of her big brother just behind them. Blood was still gushing from the puncture wounds left by the fiends' ferocious fangs. Now there was nobody in the world left for her. Their parents were killed in the last, devastating attack on Kilika by Sin six years ago. Liza herself doesn't remember much of the happened that afternoon. She was only four and lucky to survive, left in a coma for two days. According to her brother, she wouldn't have lived had it not been for a particularly beautiful young summoned whose white magic pulled her away from the brink of death. _Why_ Liza thought, eyes still bulging in part fear and part despair, _why... this is the eternal calm, everyone told me that it's a time for happiness, no more deaths, no more sorrows. Why is brother de..._

_BANG_, a shot rang out behind the little cowering girl and echoed in the forest. Then another, and then another, and then another, each shot closing rapidly on Liza. She lost count of the number of gunshots and before she knew it, pyreflies erupted from the pack of fiends and surrounded her in a brilliant light show. As one last fiend leapt desperately and flashed its fangs, Liza thought her life was over and closed her eyes, flinching as she prayed that the fangs would finish her off quick.

_Clinggggg_, a distinct impact of teeth on metal dared Liza to slightly open her right eye. The fiend hadn't leapt in order to attack the little child. Instead it went after the bigger threat, a physically fit young woman wielding dual pistols. Its bite, however, was caught by the barrels of the guns, inches from its target's head. Its eyes saw a tiny smirk curling up the lips of the gunslinger before its body was shoved back with surprising force.

Even Yuna herself was pleased at her strength. Her relatively small frame does nothing to betray her more than impressive ability to "kick ass" in the words of her friends. After allowing herself a brief respite to gloat because of the awe-inspired look of the little girl sitting on the ground, Yuna took aim with the Tiny Bee in her right hand and squarely placed a bullet between the fiend's eyes.

"It's okay, you don't have to be scared anymore." Yuna whispered gingerly in Liza's ear. The little girl thought her voice was that of an angel, but it did nothing to relieve her pain. Liza's tears soaked through the bigger girl's shirt as Yuna's hand gently stroked her back. Yuna was used to comforting small children, after all the kids back on Besaid adored her like a big sister and she's seen more than her fair share of tears and snot-filled sobs. Still seeing Liza like that broke heart just a little.

"Yuna...", a voice came behind the high summoner. It was Paine. "You know what you have to do", the intimidating female said, gesturing toward the dead body laying no ten metres from the two woman and the little girl.

Yuna turn around, and gave Paine a quick nod. "Hey Liza... You should head back to the port with my friend here. I know she looks scary, but lemme tell you," smiling her characteristic sweet and warm, but fake smile as the little girl reluctantly let go of the summoner and looked up at Paine, "she's actually a really big softie on the inside. She'll take care of you."

Liza nodded and went away, her left hand linked to Paine's right. In the corner of eye, Liza saw her saviour beginning to dance.

"It has been six years since the death of Sin and four since the Vegnagun incident. Spira is enjoying its eternal calm. People have settled down and gathered together, no longer fearing the wrath of Sin, no longer under the oppressing rule of Yevon's maestors, no longer shunning the use of machina. At first the growth was relatively slow, but then a twelve year-old Al-Bhed invented something quite amazing. The Shinra Assimilator extracted the massive amounts of energy the _little twerp_ found in the Farplane and fueled a massive building rush as the energy powered larger and larger machina. In just a year and a half Spira's entire infrastructure was renewed. Sturdy houses meant for permanently settlement were built and wired with electricity. Roads where paved between the largest cities and large hovercrafts were made to transport people from one place to another instead of chocobos or travelling by foot...uughhh I can't take this anymore!" exclaimed a fidgety young man. "I can't believe Yuna talked me into reading a history text book to a bunch of snotty stupid kids!"

"Why did you call Mr. Shinra a little twerp?", "I heard that 'twerp' is the richest person in Spira!", "I thought Lady Yuna was!", "Is Tidus dating Lady Yuna?" The kids around the bonfire were no longer paying attention to Tidus anymore, which the veteran blitzer was completely fine with. His eyes wondered until they focused on a blitzball sitting not too far from Lulu and Wakka's newly-built house. Standing up and quietly sneaking away from the chaos of the arguing children, he grabbed the ball and quickly started making his way down to the beach.

"And where do you think you are going, brudda?" Wakka voice drowned out the shrieks of excitement from a couple of local girls sitting around the bonfire, _girls and their cooties_, Tidus quietly thought.

"You know there's gonna be hell to pay for you if she finds out you are blitzing instead of reading to the kids yah?" said the bigger man as he walked towards his blond friend.

"Well why does it have to be all school-like? Why can't I read to them about blitz? You know I can't stand history." Tidus said in protest, "It's already dark and I haven't got any practice done, and we have a _tournament _in _three_ days! I am NOT losing this time!"

"You don't have to argue with me brudda. I know how ya feel..." Wakka was finding it hard to resist the itch to blitz, "but you know that fiancé of yours won't like the fact you are setting a 'bad example' for the kids yah?" he sarcastically emphasized the phrase Yuna and Lulu often used.

In a way the two women are right, ever since the dissolution of Yevon, religious schools were closed down as interest in Yevonite education waned. The problem was that the only education in Spira for close to a thousand years was Yevonite. Sure there have been efforts to establish a new system in its place, but amidst the rapid changes Spira was going through, education just fell through the cracks.

"Tch, what's Yuna gonna do anyways. Besides I can always just sweet talk her my way out of trouble." Tidus said with a growing grin on his face.

"Oh yeah? How did you sweet talk your way out of reading to the kids tonight?" Wakka snapped back.

_The night before, Yuna had caught Tidus after blitz practice planting a kiss on a fan girl's cheek after autographing her midriff of all things. Naturally she wasn't too happy at first, but after seeing the guilt on her fiancé's face, Yuna softened a little and decided to torture him a little instead of slapping him._

_With an innocent look on her face she walked to a squirming Tidus and wrapped her arms around his neck. Lifting herself to her toes to bring her lips just centimeters away from his, she brought out her most seductive voice,_

"_You know this means you are sleeping on the futon for the next week, right dear?" Yuna could feel a shiver down Tidus's back. In the old days of being a summoner, she probably would have felt hurt and betrayed by Tidus's insensitive actions. But the new Yuna had enough confidence to know that Tidus was just as in love with her as she with him. Though that doesn't mean she was gonna let him off easy. She made sure to press her chest firmly enough into his bare one so that he could feel that there was no bra underneath her top, enjoying the look of desire in her lover's ocean blue eyes as she teased him. "I am going to Kilika temple to meet with Nooj and Baralai. Pick up where I left off in the book tomorrow and behave like a good boy and _maybe_ I will forgive you."_

"Hey, you there?" Wakka shook Tidus, who finally snapped out of his reminiscence of what happened last night, wiping a little drool forming at the corner of his mouth which Wakka saw under Besaid's newly installed street lights.

"You are not thinking them dirty thoughts about Yuna again are you?" questioned Yuna's adopted big-brother.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The next morning Yuna woke up in her cabin. The S.S. Liki set sail a few hours after she had saved little Liza from the pack of lupines. Her meeting with Baralai and Nooj at the Kilika temple grounds was uneventful to say the least, merely a formality that she had to deal with now and then for the last four years, being considered one of Spira's "leaders". The truth of it was that she was asked to attend these meetings as a mediator of sorts, since she was the one who stopped the feud between the Youth League and New Yevon. Yuna just sat at the meeting, trying her best not to betray her boredom while the topic shifted from defending against fiends to emerging new factions in Spira to furthering development in the Calm Lands. _Maybe Tidus is rubbing off on me a little too much_ thought Yuna as she tried but failed to recall the important points of the meeting.

Brushing off brunette strands of hair away from her eyes, Yuna picked herself up and stretched her muscles free of the stiffness resulting from the bobbing of the ship while she slept. The air in her cabin was stale and stagnant. How she wished to step out onto the deck and enjoy the fresh ocean breeze she had grown accustomed to living on Besaid. Still Yuna doesn't want to risk getting noticed by a random tourist and consequently swarmed by passengers desperate to get a chance at an autograph. One or two fans Yuna could deal with, but an entire ship? That was not something Yuna wished upon anybody, especially this early in the morning.

So Yuna let her mind wonder, being cooped in this little cabin for did leave her time to think. The sending she performed yesterday afternoon was her first since the death of Sin. Sure there have been a few deaths on Besaid every now and then, but none of the departing souls had the same longing for their world as the young adolescent lying there in a pool of his blood. Performing the sending, Yuna couldn't help but to sympathize with the pain flowing through her as she guided the departing soul with her dance. By the end of the whole ordeal, she couldn't help to let a single tear shed. The young man only wanted to be there for his little sisters, to see her smile and make her laugh, to protect from the pain they both felt when Sin took their parents away.

While those feelings were innocent enough, Yuna knew, she knew that eventually they would become twisted and leave the unsent a shell of the loving big brother Liza knew. He would become a powerful fiend, probably causing the same pain upon another little girl not unlike Liza.

Suddenly the ship shook violently from on one side to another, sending Yuna crashing from near her bed to the opposite wall. Seconds later a blaring alarm rang throughout the entire ship. Panicked passengers scrambled here and there. Some looked lost and scared while others simply ran their fastest towards the lifeboats.

Slightly dazed, Yuna used the wall she crashed into as a support and got back to her feet. No sooner after Yuna stood up did a loud explosion shook the S.S. Liki once more, followed by agonizing screams of pain. The screams didn't last long, as a giant waved crashing into the now sinking ship silenced them.

Water started to enter her cabin from the narrow opening between the door and its frame, however that did nothing to relieve the water pressure delivered by the monstrous wave. Before she could react, Yuna's cabin was completely obliterated by the incoming water that ripped open all four walls. Something, a set of large shimmering wings, caught Yuna's eye before she was tumbled around in the ocean furthering adding to the disorientation first caused by being thrown the hard wall of her cabin. _Good thing a certain someone insisted that I keep up my blitz training_ Yuna said to herself in her head as she stretched out her limbs to steady herself in the water and found the sunlight filtering through.

A near-by small airship had noticed the wreckage left by the destruction of S.S. Liki and managed to get help from Kilika, even so help was hours away at best. Using the black magic Lulu had taught her, Yuna casted her best blizzard spell and froze a large area of the ocean, producing a make-shift platform for those who were too weak or too injured to swim.

After spending most of her time at the wreckage site healing the injured and keeping an eye out for hungry fiends, Yuna couldn't help wonder about the set of shimmering wings that hovered above the water for that split second before somehow disappearing. _Could that, whatever it was, have caused this?_

"Hey! Glad to see my favourite celebrity is still in one piece!" A blonde Al-Bhed man snapped Yuna out of her thoughts. _Gippal's still Gippal_, Yuna smiled inside a little, _even at a time like this_.

"Alright people let's put the new machina to good use!" At his order, Gippal's men immediately released three tethered machina into the water off of their medium-sized surface ship. Then he made his way to the ice platform Yuna had made and turned his attention to his favourite celebrity.

"You should use the commsphere and call Besaid, your highness's ship was expected quite a while ago." Gippal added, extending a commsphere in his hand, grinning at Yuna's eye rolling.

"Oh and where is that fiancé of yours? Doesn't he normally accompany to those boring meetings?"

"You mean the meetings you NEVER show up for?" Yuna shot back while dialling Besaid. "By the way he has a name too you know." And with that Yuna left Gippal to his subordinates and his precious machina. She could see in her mind's eye how worried her impatient fiancé must be right now.

"Gippal?" Came the excited voice of a young boy through the other end of comm line. It was Vidina, he always loved when Gippal would visit Besaid. For a non Al-Bhed, Vidina sure was into machina. Some of his favourite toys were salvaged ancient machina that the Al-Bhed had no use for.

"No silly it's me. Can you do me a favour and put Tidus on the line please? I need to talk to him ok, sweetie?" Yuna bit her lip when she saw the tiny hint of disappointment in Vidina's eyes. No matter how urgent the situation was, Yuna still hated to disappoint other people, especially four year-old kids.

"Yuna... YUNA! Where are you?" Tidus's came booming out of the commsphere. "Paine told me you left for Besaid last night, you should have been here hours ago! Did something happen to the Liki?"

"I'm okay. Really, just minor cuts and bruise, though I can't see the same for the Liki. I really don't do exactly what happened, but the ship was sunk by something..." Yuna trailed off, some loud yelling about the rescue machina caught her attention, "look I'll go into the details later ok? Something's happening."

Before Yuna could hang up, the loud yelling from Gippal's men became frantic screams for help as a large shadow began to grow against the sun-lit ocean surface. Whatever it was, it had an elongated neck that extended from a slender but lengthy body. Shadows of what seemed like muscular legs with webbed digits where also starting to become visible. The entire shadow seemed to at least the size of Gippal's rescue ship – and growing.

"Sea evrae!" Cried Gippal as a dragon's head broke the surface on his ship's starboard side. The head was followed the long neck previously hidden underwater. Its scaly skin seemed to catch the sunlight and reflected it in a distinct shimmer. _Is that what I saw before? Certainly looks like it, but something's off,_ quietly thought an otherwise stunned Yuna, but experience with dangerous encounters just like this soon kicked in, and Yuna quickly drew her duel pistols. _Good thing I accidentally fell asleep with my holster on or else these babies would be in the water._ Two quick shots from the Tiny Bees hit the evrae's head, turning the fiend's attention toward the former summoner.

Gippal seemed to catch on quick. "Do NOT fire your weapons!" He shouted towards the rescue crew. "That's only going to draw attention to yourselves! Gather all the survivors you can and make for shallow water!" Gippal gambled that the fiend would not perceive the rescue ship as threat and that its large body would probably be unsuited for shallow waters.

While the ship seemed safe for the time being, Yuna and Gippal were far from it. Their flimsy ice platform would never hold up to a physical attack from the beast they were facing. Plus there were still a few of the injured survivors that were yet to be off-loaded to the rescue ship that was now speeding away from the battle full steam. Placing herself between the sea evrae and the remaining survivors, Yuna turned to Gippal.

"Can you cut away the piece of the plate the survivors are on? We can't fight with the chance of getting them caught up." Gippal nodded and went to work with the mechanical saw attached to his machina weapon. With one loud crack, the platform broke in half, with Yuna standing on the one closest to the fiend and Gippal and the hapless survivors on the other. His timing was impeccable too, because with the blink of an eye, the evrae's head rammed into Yuna's piece of the platform. Had that piece been attached, Gippal was sure that the entire thing would have been shattered.

Yuna leapt up and toward the incoming attack, clearing just inches above the evrae's head as it made contact with the ice. Her pistols still in her hands, Yuna somersaulted while turning her body a hundred and eighty degrees so that her pistols remained trained on the fiend's head the entire time she was in the air. She unloaded bullet after bullet into the evrae's head, each impact making the beast wince. Then concentrating her white magic onto her feet, Yuna landed on the surface of the water without sinking an inch. _Good, I still know how to do that_, Yuna let a tiny grin creep across her war face.

Immediately mortar fire came crashing down on the evrae, continuing from Yuna's assault against the fiend's head. Gippal was doing his part. While the saw end of his weapon wouldn't work after the wave generated from the evrae's previous attack sent his platform drifting away, his long range attack was just as deadly.

Yuna took this chance to change into her warrior dress sphere and channeled as much thunder elemental magic into her sword as she could. Since their introduction four years ago, Shinra has continually upgraded the garment grids used by the former Gullwings. His latest version was truly a breakthrough that allowed for almost instantaneous switch from one dress sphere to another. With that in mind and a quiet thanks to the genius wonder, Yuna charged at the stunned fiend's head and unleashed an uppercut swing, thunder roaring from the beast's head into the clear blue sky, followed by a huge release of pyreflies.

With her most of her magic used up, Yuna's feet started to give in to the water. Just when she was about to sink into the ocean, an arm flew out and grabbed onto her waist and hulled her onto the back of a speedy hovercraft. Her surprised gaze was met by a giant grin on her fiancé's face. It was then that she realized that the Liki hadn't sunk too far off the coast of Besaid.

"You sounded like there was trouble, so I thought I could swoop and save the day." Said Tidus, with a hint of amusement in his voice, "but I guess I'll have to settle for saving you from getting more wet."

Sure enough, Yuna's clothes were already starting to dry out from her surprise awakening this morning. She smiled sweetly and leaned in to kiss Tidus on the cheek. "My hero" she said with a taint of both sarcasm and love.

A/N: So I hope you like the pacing of this story, if you find that the scenes are a little too fast or too slow just let me know. I have re-imagined the dress sphere system a little. Instead of the spheres granting different roles in battle, I thought that they would simply be a means to change equipment in battle, and because of that, the characters in this story would still be able to use their magic no matter what dress sphere they are using at the time. Oh, and this chapter may be riddled with grammar and spelling mistakes. I normally would gripe on these things but its late and I need to wake up early so screw the English language.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I forgot to mention last chapter that I have some ideas of new dress spheres that replaces some of the ones my interpretation got rid of like black and white mage. I also have something for Tidus so he won't battle the same way he did in X (you'll see eventually when I get to it). I won't be showcasing Rikku and Paine too much in battle because they are essentially the same as Yuna with her dress spheres. But I may include something if I feel it's necessary and/or adds to the story and/or too cool to ignore. (I have an idea cooking for Rikku, but Paine... well she's _insert obvious pun here_ :D). If you guys think of something cool that only Paine would do in battle that no one else would/could then pm me and we'll see if I like it.

Chapter 3

The rest of the day went by just as hastily as it had begun. Yuna and Lulu gathered some of the villagers in Besaid and brought them down to the beach in order to tend to wounded survivors. As soon as she had the chance, Yuna downed an ether, knowing full well that her magic was running on fumes but nonetheless needed because of her healing prowess. Of the fifty-something passenger and crew aboard the Liki, twenty-five had come through the ordeal largely unscathed if not just completely beat. Another twenty were injured in various degrees, ranging to large cuts, to broken bones, to concussions. The most urgent, however, were a couple who unfortunately shared the cabin the first tidal wave hit. They were immediately knocked unconscious and currently not breathing. Gippal's men had an apparatus set up for the two of them that apparently mechanically forces air into their lungs and blood to circulate. But as grim looks were exchanged, the rescuers silently acknowledged that eventually they would have to give up on the two.

Meanwhile Tidus took the Aurochs out to the site of the wreckage. He had informed the rest of the team what had transpired during the day and told everyone to be on their toes for fiend attacks. Even Tidus himself was a little nervous, knowing that while another sea evrae attack was highly unlikely, in the off chance that another one does show up, he would have a tough fight in his hands. With that in his mind, he tried to lighten the mood up a little. "Think of this as an underwater exercise for the tournament!" he said with Yuna's trademark fake smile. With that they started diving, recovering what pieces of the wrecked ship they could to be examined later for clues as to the cause of the sinking.

Starting with the outer rims of the site, since those pieces were probably the lightest, and working themselves inwards the Aurochs dove and resurfaced repetitively, each time bringing something back up to Gippal's rescue ship. On his second trip down to the bottom, Tidus found something that caught the sunlight and upon examination, smiled just a little and pocketed a ring before resuming the task at hand.

The Aurochs' recovery went relatively smooth, even the occasional awkward joke about how they were gonna get eaten by a giant fish or that they may find sunken treasure cropped up here and there. At least until they found the first dead body. In what was the boiler room floated the corpse of an unlucky engineer who had been examining the newly-installed machinery, he had no chance of escape and probably drowned. The poor Auroch who discovered the body immediately went pale and let out a huge gulp of air before bolting to the surface and screamed "D-D-Dead guy!"

After that the sombre nature of their outing settled in and the team carried out their work in a deafening silence.

By the time night came the entire rescue and recovery effort became a numbers game. There were twenty-five uninjured but shocked survivors, twenty healed but shocked survivors, two dead buried on the beach, six more dead discovered by the Aurochs, fifty-seven pieces of wreckage hulled up, fourteen flasks of ether drank by Yuna, and a village full of people who just last night enjoyed the cheerful sounds of playful children around their normal, warm, and inexplicably large bonfire.

The bonfire was still there, except it didn't feel warm. It just felt _not_ cold, at least not nearly as cold as the rest of the air around the island seemed to be. Not one person stringed more than three words together in a sentence. They all just sat around the fire, wanting to make sense of what exactly happened. By the end of it all, the fire was doused, the villagers returned to their homes, the survivors settled in the former crusader's lodge, and Yuna was the only person left. She sat on a log and watched aimlessly as the remaining embers burned themselves out.

She had spent the entire bonfire session recollecting what little she knew about the attack on the S.S. Liki. She knew that most people would be quick to blame the sea evrae for the attack. After all it was a rare and powerful fiend. But Yuna wasn't so sure. Though she was convinced that the giant of a beast could have ripped the Liki apart without much effort, she just couldn't get past the pair of giant shimmering wings she saw oh-so-briefly. They had disappeared in the blink on an eye, and she knew from experience that the sea evrae moved nowhere near that fast.

While the sea monster had almost the same shimmer about its neck, it didn't possess wings. Plus Yuna was beginning to suspect that the mysterious wings she saw were above the water now that she has time to think back.

Something else wracked her brain too, though she had performed the sending on the eight recovered bodies on the beach, she had an inkling that the bodies were empty. Their souls had somehow already separated completely. Normally souls separate that fast only if the dead had accepted their fate before their bodies gave out, but this was a fiend attack, it just made no sense to her.

Shaking her head at the impossibility of it all, Yuna decided to blame her lack of practice at sending the dead and her physical fatigue.

_And then there's this little problem._ Yuna thought as she looked down at her left hand.

She doesn't know when, but sometime during the night she managed to pick herself up and opened the door to the home she shared with Tidus. It was a simple house, with a small but stocked kitchen, a living room, and a bathroom on the first floor, and a set of stairs leading to the bedroom on the second floor. That bedroom itself was open to a small balcony of sorts and also connects to its own bathroom.

Closing the door carefully, Yuna saw Tidus curled up in the futon the two had decided to put in the living room in case of guests. He was exhausted from the salvage operation and also wanted to give Yuna a little space. He had seen that look in her eye before – she was out of it at the bonfire. Still, Yuna couldn't help but smile a little. Not only has Tidus not forgotten his little "punishment", but the way he curled up his legs because the futon was a little too short for his liking was somehow what she needed to brighten up just a little.

It was then that Yuna realized how downright exhausted she was too.

The next morning Tidus woke up facing the living room window. Judging from the amount of light coming in through pane of glass, it was probably well into the morning. Rolling over to his side, Tidus felt a familiar warmth in the makeshift bed as a few locks hair on the back of Yuna's head tickled the tip of his nose. He put effort, to no avail, into holding back the sneeze caused by the surprise irritation.

"Achoooo..."

To his surprise, Yuna only stirred in her slumber and scooted further into him. When her smooth silky skin pressed into his chest he realized that she wasn't wearing a single piece of clothing, which surprised the rest of his sleepiness away. Flustered and completely at a loss as to what to do, Tidus's heart started to race. _Maybe I should wake her up. No she must be really tired if my sneeze didn't wake her. Maybe I should get up and make her breakfast, yah that might put her into a cheerful mood._

Tidus had almost made up his mind when he thought _wait... that would mean Yuna would get out of bed and put clothes on. Do I really want that? Ah c'mon pull yourself together Tidus, it's not like you've never seen her naked before._

"What's wrong? Never seen a naked woman before?" Said Yuna, who had Tidus convinced she was fast asleep just two seconds ago. Perplexed, Tidus, for what seemed like the hundredth time this morning, wore a stunned look on his face.

Whimpering on Yuna's part soon put Tidus's mind at ease. A_h she's talking in her sleep_. Putting his elbow on his pillow and using his knuckles to prop his head up, Tidus simply stared at the rising and falling of Yuna's chest as she breathed. Finally calming down, he found the rhythmic motion so very hypnotizing. He gradually felt the atmosphere around him to be... peaceful, as compared to all the commotion yesterday. Yuna always had that effect on him, ever since he had first met her, everything she did just... put him at ease. He had always lived a fast-paced life style, but every time he talks to her, no every time he just _looks_ at her, he just feels the intensity within him fade away. It almost just forces him to just lay back and enjoy the moment, as if that would prolong his time spent together with her.

Tidus all but lost track of time when Yuna rolled over on her back, now she was facing Tidus. Eyes still closed and her face still hinted at the exhaustion she felt last night. With every breath she took, her tender breasts brushed against his chest, which Tidus was keenly aware of. He was finding it hard to resist his instincts. _Ah why did she have to look so tired, I just want to wake her up and..._

There was a loud knock from the door, and in his typical blitzball speed, Tidus lifted his covers, scrambled to his feet, opened the door, and raised his index finger to his lips, warning the big oaf standing in his doorway to keep it down. What he didn't account for, however, was the amount of blood that was diverted to the spot between his legs.

"Good morning, yah?" Wakka greeted his slightly-larger-than-normal grin.

Realizing his throbbing erection, Tidus blushed a little and backed away to shut the door.

"Hey just remember, we are leaving for Luca along with the survivors, yah?"

Despite what happened the day before, the Aurochs were still determined to win the tournament. By now the rest of Spira had heard what had transpired off the coast of Besaid. Yet not one team decided to back out. If nothing, it was to show that Spira is no longer gripped by death. Sure the people will mourned the dead, but that will be all they will do, every single person in Spira, it seems, is determined not to let death strangled hold his or her life.

"Hey I'm just telling you to get ready, yah? The airship won't wait for the two of you." Wakka didn't seem to register Tidus's gesture earlier, his voice still booming through the door.

"Okay, okay, I get the point, just stop being so loud. Yuna's asleep and she looks really spent. We'll be there. I just want her to rest a little more." Tidus whispered after cracking the door open again, this time just enough for his face to poke through.

"Guess it's back to the breakfast idea." Tidus sighed to himself after finally getting Wakka to leave him and his sleeping beauty alone.

It would be another hour before Yuna finally stirred awake and blinked the foggy tiredness away from her eyes. The first thing she noticed was the empty but ruffled spot next to her on the bed. The second thing she noticed was a distinct burning smell.

Immediately fearing the worst and having yet to regain her wits after her long slumber, Yuna ran into the kitchen to investigate what was, in her mind, burning her cozy little house down.

"Yuna?" Said Tidus, jaw hanging open, speechless because his fiancé had decided to run into the kitchen completely exposed.

"Is there something burning?"

"O-o-oh that's just my latest attempt at breakfast... well, I guess you can call it lunch at this point." Recovered Tidus, finally closing his mouth, "and I could get used to this nudist exposé thing."

Looking down at her own bare breasts, Yuna's face frowned while blood came rushing up to her face. She turned around and bolted up the stairs to their bedroom and put on her bathrobe while muttering for Tidus to shut up – she could hear him forcing back his laughter. When she remerged into the kitchen, a healthy helping of toast, bacon, and pan-fried eggs were served on the counter.

"Enjoy! And I promise nothing you see in front of you is burnt."

Yuna smiled, her worries from last night almost completely gone. She sat down and ate, and while the food wasn't the best she has tasted, it was nonetheless pleasant. From the other side of the counter, Tidus could tell that Yuna was enjoying the moment, yet he could still see a faint line of reservation.

He brought his head down a little and looked up to meet Yuna's blue and green eyes while she worked her way through her eggs and bacon.

"I thought you were still mad at me." Tidus prodded with an exploratory look about his eyes, "You know, because of that girl that wanted my signature."

"If you need to know why I was naked sleeping beside you on the futon, my clothes were dirty from yesterday right down to my underwear, I was too tired to walk up the stairs, and..." Yuna stopped short and smiled a little after she thought how to continue, "And you just looked so damn cute curled up on the futon, I just _had_ to cuddle up to you."

"I think you meant irresistible." He countered, refusing to think himself as "cute".

"I think I knew wha..." Yuna didn't finish her sentence before Tidus leaned in over her half-eaten breakfast and planted his lips on hers. When the surprise wore off and she began to kiss back, she felt a small metallic object pass entering her mouth.

Tidus pulled away after that and Yuna gripped the offending item between her teeth. She blinked, spat the foreign item out into her hand, and all of a sudden widened her eyes.

"Where did..."

"I found it at the wreckage yesterday, lucky too, anyone else would have dismissed your engagement ring and moved on."

Speechless, Yuna stared at the ring in her hand. She had taken it off before bed and tucked it under her pillow before going to bed in her cabin aboard the now sunken ship. She had been trying to work out a way to explain how she lost the precious ring and yet kept her pistols on her during the night.

The ring itself cost Tidus his entire earnings and half of Wakka's from the Aurochs' most recent tournament win. It was made of platinum and instead of being embroidered with the normal diamond, it had two stones in place of one – a blue sapphire and a green emerald that mirrored each other, bonded together to give the appearance of a single stone if not for the contrasting colours. From the moment Yuna laid eyes on it, she knew it was perfect.

"I thought I lost this..." said an almost-teary eyed Yuna before walking over the counter and finishing the kiss Tidus started.

As a footnote I think it will be a while before I will update this story again because I want to work on another story. It's just a way to get past writer's block. I promise it won't be too long. In the meantime please review! I want to know what I'm doing right and more importantly, what I'm doing wrong.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Warning, lemon in this chapter. Oh and a bit of the plot reveals itself. Just a tiny bit :D. Please read and review. Also I realize that I have mistakenly stated Vidina was six, but he's actually four years old. So I went back to Chapter 2 and corrected it, my bad!

Chapter 4

One kiss led to another, and another, and then another. Before they both knew it, Yuna had her arms around Tidus's neck and his hands were snaking their way into Yuna's bath robe from the its opening around the neck. His palms slid over her skin across her collarbone, him enjoying its creamy, smooth feel.

He could feel Yuna's desire grow with each kiss. Pretty soon her tongue was furiously dancing with his. His hands made it to her shoulders underneath the bathrobe before Yuna finally grew impatient. Without breaking away from the heated mouth-to-mouth action, her hands flew to her waist and swiftly undid the knot of her robe. With one flick from Tidus's hands, the robe lost its grip on Yuna's shoulders and fell to her feet.

It was now Tidus's turn to be impatient. He turned Yuna's body around and pressed her back into him. Yuna didn't put on a bra so all that stood between him and her was a black, lacy pair of panties. He knew how aroused Yuna must be at this point, but that didn't mean he was going cave so easily. No, he was going to tease her a little. His hands crawled up from her waist to her perfectly shaped breasts and firmly cupped them. With his index fingers and thumbs, he pinched her nipples.

The pinch sent Yuna off the edge. She involuntarily leaned back into his chest, leaned her head back and turned to face Tidus. Her eyes at this point barely registered any vision, much too clouded with passion. She tried to press her lips into his, but he wouldn't have it. Instead he let the lightly brush his and immediately pulled away, much to her disappointment and his amusement.

The gentle fondling of her breasts suddenly turned into a strong squeeze. This time Tidus captured her mouth with his, muffling her moan with his mouth. He kept going, unwilling to let a single moan from Yuna go anywhere but into his mouth.

He let go of Yuna's right breast with his right hand and brought his left across her chest to replace it. With his now free hand, he crept downwards, slowly and making sure that she felt it the entire way down. Occasionally he would give a squeeze with his left hand just to remind her that her breasts were still very much his.

Not soon enough for Yuna, Tidus's hand reached into her final piece of clothing. She wished that Tidus would free her mouth from his so she could let out all of the heated air in her lungs. Yet somehow she was beginning to like this little game he was playing. When his fingers finally reached her clitoris, a surge of sensations shot up her entire body. Her muscles tensed, her vision narrowed, all she could feel at the moment was his fingers teasing her.

Her knees went soft, but Tidus didn't let her fall, his left hand held on to her tightly. Her hips bucked into his and she felt the hardness underneath his pants.

_His pants_. Yuna suddenly became aware that her lover was still very much clothed. She didn't want that, not at all. Struggling to regain control of herself, she turned around and back away from Tidus slowly, keeping an arm extended between his toned chest and herself. She bit her bottom lip and knowingly eyed his trousers.

Tidus seemed to get the message. He smiled at Yuna's eagerness while slightly bending down to take off what was Yuna's least favourite thing in the world at the moment.

Then Wakka's knocking and loud voice dispersed the passionate atmosphere. "Hey get a move on! We leave in an hour!" It was as if the door wasn't even there.

"What is he talking about?" Yuna whispered, frowning because of the disruption.

"He he, I guess I forgot to mention that we are leaving early today for Luca." Tidus answered apologetically. "Mmm, why don't we take a rain check?"

Yuna sighed in frustration. She badly wanted to finish what they started here. "Fine." she said, picking up her robe and putting it on. "Why don't you clean up here and I will go wash up. And you better be serious about the rain check."

Cid's new airship, the Ascension, would soon land by Besaid's northern beach. Before anyone could have boarded, however, Rikku came out hopping down the entry ramp.

"Heyyyyyyy guys!" She greeted the passengers waiting to board. Before anyone knew it she had jumped into, or more like tackled Tidus. The two blondes were both lying on the sand when Tidus barely uttered a tiny "hi".

"I heard that you popped the question! I guess if you and Yunie are gonna get married," Rikku paused for a second to get back on her feet, "you would be my cousin too!"

Tidus and Rikku have grown quite close after he had come back after the ordeal with Vegnagun. To her, he was like a big brother she had always wanted, unlike the one she "got stuck with".

"Uhh Rikku? We should really get going..." Yuna interrupted the sibling bonding moment hesitantly.

"YOU! I am still mad at you, you know? My favourite cousin gets engaged and I have to hear it from Brother. Brother! Well guess what missy, Tidus here is now my favourite cousin!"

Yuna lost the argument before it even began. Rikku's barrage would last another five minutes before she finally calmed down.

It wasn't actually Yuna's fault that Rikku was left out of the loop. To be honest, she and Tidus hadn't planned on telling anyone anytime soon. The word sort of just got out - someone probably saw the ring on Yuna ring finger and came to the right conclusion. Pretty soon most of Spira was speculating who the lucky man was - that information was privileged, only those closest to the High Summoner knew.

Soon after Rikku's little outburst, the survivors of yesterday's attack boarded the large airship, followed by the Aurochs, and finally a grumpy Rikku and an apologetic Yuna.

Cid uses this airship as a cruise ship of sorts for some of the richest people in Spira. Those who can afford his services are treated to one of twenty-four luxurious cabins, some of the best cuisine available prepared by none other than Barkeep and his team of hypello chefs, and Spira's most awe-inspiring sights, from Mt. Gagazet to the sphere pools of the Moonflow at night. People pay good money for his services, so Cid doesn't normally run detours to Besaid like he is today. But he does have a soft spot for his half Al-Bhed niece.

"Well, whatchy'all waitin' for? Get settled so I can take off!" Cid's voice came through loud and clear in the intercom.

Yuna and her former guardians, plus little Vidina clinging to his mother's hand, settled on the bridge while the rest of the Aurochs and the healed survivors relaxed in the cabin. This was going to Vidina's first blitz tournament, though the little boy was tiny bit apprehensive about going to such a large and boisterous stadium.

"Hey guess what, daddy's going to play tomorrow morning. We get to see all the new moves he's been practicing these past four years." Lulu cooed, sensing Vidina's tension.

"Ha! Only if you count being slow and struggling for air new moves, Wakka's got plenty of those!" Tidus chirped, his muscled stiffened just a little – he knew what was coming.

"Why you little punk, I'll show you who's slow!" Wakka answered while lunging at Tidus in an attempt to put him in a head lock. It wasn't that Wakka was slow, but Tidus has kept up with his training these past years while Wakka tended to his family, and it showed. Tidus simply leapt out of the way, causing Wakka to lose his balance a little and grab nothing but air.

"Damn punk won't stand still eh?"

Thus begun a chase sequence around the bridge of the Ascension, a chase sequence that way too often occurred on Besaid. Yuna, Rikku, and Lulu giggled at the sight while Vidina cheered on his father. In fact the only one who wasn't amused was Cid, who pinched the bridge of his nose and simply sighed. "Damn young people these days." He muttered under his breath. Nobody heard.

* * *

By the time the group had gotten to the opening ceremony, the stage was already lit and the stadium lights were beginning to fade out. Tidus and Yuna separated from the rest of the group and made their way to the stage.

Lulu, Wakka, Vidina, and the rest of the Aurochs barely sat down on their seats in their reserved section before Bobba and Jimma started their dialogue.

"Welcome all! If you are here for anything but blitz you must be lost, because tonight we begin the fifth annual All Spira Blitz Tournament to Commemorate the Defeat of Sin!"

"Boy that sure was a mouth full Bobba, you sure know how to hold air in those lungs."

"Why thank you Jimma, but I'm nowhere near as good as these guys. Let's introduce the team captains!"

"Alright let's start with last year's champions. Fans, give your loudest cheer for the Besaid Aurochs and their team captain, one of two legendary guardians on his team, Sir Tidus!"

A single light beamed down to Tidus from the ceiling of the stadium. A trademark cocky smile developed on the blitzer's face, he knew that he would get the loudest cheer out of any player. After all, he was the best, not to mention a legendary guardian who helped destroy Sin.

The cheers continued as the rest of the teams and their captains were introduced one by one. After which the commentating duo changed their tone to a much more solemn one.

"And now people of Spira, please give a moment of silence for those who passed away during a terrible attack on the S.S. Liki."

With that, the entire stadium fell silent. Involuntarily, Tidus played through the mental images all six dead bodies he and the rest of his team had brought up from the wreckage the day before. The images still haunted him when he recalled them. They embodied everything that the eternal calm did not, giving him the stark realization that maybe, just maybe, not everything is fine and dandy on Spira. A glance at the Aurochs' section told him that his teammates were feeling the same way too.

"May their souls rest in peace on the Farplane." Jimma said, signalling the end of the respectful gesture.

"Well I guess we should introduce our very, very, very important guest now." Bobba continued with a somewhat more uplifting tone.

The stage shifted to the side and Tidus and the other captains were rotated ninety degrees with respect to their original positions, which now revealed an opening – the shaft for a lift of sorts.

Slowly but surely the crowd began to cheer again. At its high point, the crowd became louder than it was for Tidus's introduction.

_Oh well, guess I still can't compare to her_. He quietly thought, actually quite amused despite his wounded pride.

"It looks like the fans know who our important guest is Bobba."

"It certainly does Jimma. I know I don't have to say this people, but it's still part of the script they gave me. Please give a warm welcome to Besaid's resident summoner and high summoner of the eternal calm, Lady Yuna!"

"Was that a part of your script too Bobba?"

"Yes it was, Jimma. Yes it was."

Yuna didn't frequent these big occasions, in fact this was her first time in four years. However that doesn't mean she didn't enjoy being the centre of everyone's attention, but only for a brief moment.

She was dressed for the occasions too, with a simple change of dress spheres she now wore a strapless black and dark violet evening gown with no back. The dress had a dark shine to it so that it caught the light, but didn't out shine her radiant skin. The fabric was soft and hugged her skin, revealing her exquisite, lean, and athletic figure. The bottom of the dress was cut at her right side and hiked up just a little, revealing a tiny sliver of her legs, leaving just enough for the imagination.

"People of Spira," she began, almost too quietly before raising her voice. "People of Spira... my friends. We have gathered here tonight, not to only celebrate sport, but to also celebrate peace, prosperity, and the best of mankind."

Yuna took a brief pause here, turned around in order to address the entire audience, and continued "six years ago, I stood before all of you to announce the beginning of the eternal calm. I remember telling you, my friends, to never forget the friends we have lost and the dreams that have faded..."

"But today, as I stand before you once again in this new Spira, built with your hard work out of a thousand years of Sin's torment, I implore you to cherish the friends you have made in these past six years, cherish the memories that you have made, and cherish..." her last word was again almost too quiet to be heard. "Cherish the dreams that have become true."

"And with that in mind, let us make more fond memories in the next two days. Enjoy your blitzball Spira, you've earned it." She waved to the crowd as the spotlight slowly faded on her. Not that the darkness did anything to calm the ongoing cheers.

On cue, the sphere pool above the stage began to fill, the glowing water illuminating the stadium once again. Bridges extended themselves to opposing ends of the pool while goal posts were raised from the ground level to their positions in-game. Out of the spotlight, the captains of the Luca Goers and the Al-Bhed Psyches silent excused themselves.

"And now, for our opening match, we present you your own Luca Goers!" Jimma said excitedly. If there was ever a biased commentator, Jimma was definitely at the top of the list. He was arguably the Goers biggest fan, and he let people know it every time.

"Well now Jimma, don't forget their opponents. The Goers will be facing one of the favourites in their opening match. Say hello to the Al-Bhed Psyches!"

"Bobba, care to explain why the Psyches are the favourites?"

"I'm glad you asked Jimma. They were the runner-ups in the same tournament last year. In fact they finished last season with a better record than the Aurochs. This season most of their veterans have returned, and I hear they have this great new centre fielder named Teemeau. He supposed to even give Sir Tidus himself a run for his money!"

"Then he must be some player Bobba. I can't wait to get this match started."

"Neither can I, Jimma. Neither can I."

Yuna and Tidus made their way to the Aurochs' section just in time for the opening blitz-off. To their surprise, Teemeau shot up like a rocket and snatched the ball before any of the Goers even got close. With the agility of a fish, he spun around an incoming duet of venom tackles from the Goer defence before passing the ball to a winger making his way towards the Goer's goal. It was clearly a give-and-go play, but the Goers could have done little to stop Teemeau amazing speed. Before the Goers could mount any useful defence, he unleashed a sphere shot that escaped the Goer's goalie's outstretched hands, grazing his fingertips. They were lucky, however, because the ball barely sailed wide of the target.

"Hey Rikku, you know anything about this Teemeau guy? He never came up in any of our scouting reports." Tidus asked, clearly a little daunted by the young player's skill and speed.

"Mmm, I've heard rumours here and there. It's nothing concrete, but apparently his parents were killed at the attack on Home. He was only thirteen at the time. A lot of people say that he saw a _certain_ someone playing blitzball and that inspired him." Rikku said, nudging Tidus's ribs with her elbow.

"Oh that wouldn't be Wakka would it?" Tidus jested, much to the bigger man's annoyance.

"Joke if you like, but we Al-Bhed are going to take the tournament this year. You just watch."

"Rikku's got a point, he _is_ really good. Maybe you should introduce yourself, I'm sure you are like a hero of sorts to him." Yuna joined in on the conversation.

"You think he would let me in on his secret? You know, how he could swim to fast?"

"You _could_ teach him the Jecht Shot. Maybe he would consider that an even trade" suggested Yuna with a smile.

Then Wakka cut into the conversation, "hey I'm not saying the guy isn't fast, but look at the Goers, I think something's wrong with them."

"What do you mean Wakka?" Tidus's curiosity piqued a little, he hadn't noticed unusual with the Goers, but then again between the new upstart blitzer and Yuna's dress, he didn't have much more attention to go around.

"Just shut up for a sec and look yah? See how tired and out of shape they all look? I know the Goers weren't the same team ever since we beat them on the pilgrimage, but this is something else yah?"

Wakka was right, the Goers were slow and listless. To the untrained eye, it may just look like Teemeau and the rest of the Psyches were just plain better, but to a professional, the Goers looked tired, out of practice, and amateurish at best. Minute details in their play, like how it took them a couple more extra strokes to cover the same distance than their opponents, how their faces showed faint strain, hinting at a lack of oxygen in their lungs, or how their kicks propelled them just a hair short of intercepting critical passes, went unnoticed by most of the onlookers. While the Psyches missed on their first chance, the Goers had no such luck for the rest of the game. By the end of the match, the Goers were thoroughly trounced by a score of five to zero. Disgruntled Goers fans were voicing their displeasure in their team's performance openly as they left the stadium for the night.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The rest of the night played host to an amateur-level tournament, the rest of the professional teams would play their matches tomorrow.

Although a great deal of the seats were left empty by displeased Goers fans, what was left of the crowd didn't seem to lose too much of their enthusiasm. They cheered on the amateurs either for good sport or just for the plain fact that none of them wanted to go home yet for the evening. For his part, Wakka decided to stay since he had the best eye for talent on the team. Some of these amateurs were actually good enough to turn pro given enough time for practice and a decent training environment. Besides, Vidina had insisted on staying to watch more blitzball, he was already hooked on the sport, to the slight annoyance of his mother.

The rest of the Aurochs were just filing out of the stadium when a tall young Al-Bhed man dressed in a dark blue robe over a tanned silk tunic and black pants walked in through their assigned exit. The man's trademark Al-Bhed blonde hair was buzz cut and his face still hinted at the softness of a boy's features, though some lightly-trimmed facial hair was beginning to wash that away.

"Shinra!" Yuna and Rikku greeted him in unison, rushing up to hug their former fellow sphere hunter during their Gullwing days – now the richest man in Spira.

"Hey Twerp, don't think I forgot that you knocked me out and took all my swords! I still want them back you know." Tidus evidently wasn't as thrilled as the two young women to see Shinra, who as Tidus said, had come to Besaid about a year ago and informed him that he and his engineers had come up with something really cool and wanted to try it on the former guardian. Before Tidus could have replied however, Shinra knocked him out cold with some kind of sleeping gas, and made off with all of Tidus's swords except for the Brotherhood.

Shinra might have gotten filthily rich from his assimilators, but he was still obviously uncomfortable around women, shown by his awkward expression when he replied while still embraced in a hug from both Yuna and Rikku.

"A-a-actually that's part of the reason I'm here," he stammered, "I have a little invention I would like to show you later, and don't worry, no knockout gas this time. I only used it last time because I was in a hurry and didn't want to explain."

"So you knocked me out? What kind of logic is that?" Tidus snapped back.

"Oh give him a break Tidus," Rikku defended her fellow Al-Bhed, breaking her hold and turning to face him, she asked "hey why don't we go grab dinner? I'm sure we are all starving. Plus we could catch up over food! And don't you DARE hide anything from me." Yuna couldn't help but feel like the last command was more directed at her than Shinra.

"Uhh... sure" answered the young Al-Bhed, not that he had any other choice. He followed as Rikku skipped and hopped out of the stadium and into the lit-up streets of Luca. Yuna fell back a little so that she could walk beside Tidus.

"Look at all the people," she said sweeping her vision across the tens of thousands of spectators walking out of the stadium, "was Zanarkand..." she choked back her words a little in order to find the right ones. "Was Zanarkand just like this? You know, after a big, fancy blitz tournament?"

Tidus frowned at the question just a little. It wasn't that he was sensitive about his life back in the Dream Zanarkand. It was the way Yuna asked the question, the usual hint of wonder in her tone whenever they talked about his former place of residence wasn't present this time. Tidus couldn't grasp the motive behind the question, and he usually read her like a book.

"Uhh, kinda, Luca's stadium is just as lit up, but the city needs a bit more if you ask me... and there were a lot parties around the stadium."

"Around the stadium? You mean they didn't even wait until they got to a club or something?"

"Nah, that way people wouldn't get separated while trying to find a place. You just come out with your friends and it's party time!"

Yuna couldn't help but to smile a little at this little burst of excitement. "Well we'll just have to work on that here in Luca then. I want to see a city just like Zanarkand in Spira again."

Now Tidus understood the point of the conversation. He just smiled back and nodded in agreement. "You know, back in Zanarkand, loads of fan girls would just throw themselves at me when I come out. Think we could fix..."

He didn't finish the sentence before Yuna jabbed a playful elbow into his ribs hard enough to stop the air from escaping. She looked at him with a look of playful discontent with a brow raised, daring him to continue further.

"Okay, okay" Tidus said, clutching at his side, "we can leave that detail out."

As the couple made their away from the bright lights of Luca's stadium behind Shinra and Rikku, Yuna noticed a figure slumped over by a fountain. Tapping on Tidus arm to signal her brief detour, she walked over to find a weak adolescent man and squatted down to meet his eyes. They were unfocused and milky from what was likely malnutrition. His face was thin with a wild growth of hair. He couldn't have been older than seventeen or eighteen, yet he had the frailty of a sixty year old man. The clothing on him looked torn and has clearly seen better days.

"Hey, how are you doing?" Yuna tried to converse with the man, knowing full well that he was not in good shape. He just looked at her with his eyes struggling to stay open, focused on something behind her head, not uttering a single word.

One of the onlookers passing by seemed to have taken notice. He walked over and stood intimidatingly above the husk slumping by the fountain. His figure greatly contrasted the young drifter – he was bulky, well-built, tall, and well groomed. His clothes were well-pressed and expensive looking.

"Hey you miserable brat, didn't the guards tell you that you are not welcome here? Do you realize who's talking to you? This is the most important woman in Spira, you stupid miscreant." The rich-looking man spouted out venomously before delivering a kicking nudge to the vagrant's side. Again, the young man seemed to register nothing.

"Hey look at me when I'm talking to you." Now he had his fist raised, drunken with rage that this shell of a man would dare not acknowledge him and, well, drunk in general. Before his fist would connect with its target however, his wrist was caught and twisted behind his back, forcing him to wince in pain and turn away.

"Get out of here before you make me more angry" said Yuna. Her emotionless and cold tone told the would-be assailant that she was serious. He felt her stare burning into his backside even though he dared not turn his around to meet her eyes.

"Fine your ladiness", he muttered before jerking away and disappearing into the Luca night, his pride more wounded than his arm.

Turning back to her original person of interest, she offered him another sincere look, pleading him to register something with his milky eyes.

There was nothing. Try as she might, Yuna was unable to solicit a single reaction out of him. Finally resigning in her attempts to establish a dialogue, she simply took his right hand in to hers and placed all the gil she had on her person into his hands. "Here this should be enough for the next few days. If you have any relatives that would help, use the money for some transportation, okay?" She curled his fingers into the generous charity as she said this, almost begging that he would at least hold onto the lifeline she's offering.

To her surprise, the young gripped onto the gift. At least somewhat satisfied, Yuna stood up and hesitantly stepped away.

"Thank you, Lady Yuna. B-b-but I'm afraid..." came a weak voice, still holding its boyish pitch, it surprised Yuna. She had all but given up on verbal interactions. "I don't have any family, not anymore..."

From where Yuna stood, she could hear tiny sobs coming from the adolescent that wrenched her heart. There were a lot of people like him out there. Between Sin's last attacks and marauding fiends, Spira's growth was blemished by sad stories of children growing up begging for food and shelter their parents would have provided – if they were alive. In the days of Yevon, the temples would at least accept those orphaned by Sin, people like herself, Wakka, and Lulu in fact, in order to recruit acolytes and strengthen their false faith. Nowadays people didn't seem to care.

But Yuna cared, it was in her nature to care for those in need. She might not be able to save every single orphan suffering out there in the streets, but damn it she was determined to do _something_ for this unfortunate sitting in front of her.

"Why don't come with me and my friends then," she started, motioning towards her waiting companions by the nearest intersection, "we are going to a restaurant and you look like you could use some food."

He suddenly brightened up and for the first time stared into Yuna's heterochromatic eyes, as if trying to judge her sincerity. But then he sank back, "I-I wouldn't feel comfortable in a restaurant, not with the way I'm dressed." Clearly that other man wasn't the only one who bullied him.

"Okay, but promise me you'll buy yourself some food with that money okay? Maybe some clothes too to get people like that other guy off your back. When you are done, go to the Mi'ihen travel agency. The owner's name is Rin, he'll help you. Just tell him that Lady Yuna sent you."

The young man nodded. "Thank you" he said in a barely audible whisper.

Assured that everything will be okay, Yuna finally got up and made her way to her friends. "By the way, if you meet a scary looking working for Rin name Paine, tell her I said hi alright? She's a friend."

Somewhat confused, the young man simply nodded again.

When the group of four sat down in a private booth at a pricey looking café near the city square, Yuna wore a smile on her face that didn't go unnoticed by Tidus. When he asked about what was making her so giddy, Yuna told them everything that had happened in front of the fountain. Then Rikku and Tidus proceeded to make fun of her seeming necessity to help those in need, which in turn resulted in a backlash from Yuna, abhorring the fact that her husband-to-be and her cousin would be so heartless.

"Yuna, we are not _heartless_, it's just that you _always_ go out of your way to help other people."

"What's wrong with that?" Yuna's tone showed some of the annoyance she was feeling at the moment – a lot more than she would have liked to show in fact.

Seeing that his teasing may have gone a little too far, Tidus let out a small chuckle and threw his hands up in surrender. "You know what, there's nothing wrong with that, nothing at all. You care too much, but that's why I love you."

Then, to Yuna's surprise, he leaned over and kissed her. It wasn't just a simple peck on the lips either, but a full-on, passionate, deepened kiss. It continued for quite a while, until Rikku finally broke the silence.

"Geez when will you come up for some air, you're suffocating poor Yunie."

She was right, of course. But Yuna was too engaged to actually notice how out of breath she was.

"You know what they say: a suffocating Yuna is a Yuna that can't get mad at me." Tidus said through a giant grin.

_Damn it, I was getting mad at him,_ thought Yuna. Then she chuckled at the silliness of it all. Pretty soon all four of them were enjoying a good laugh over an outrageously expensive dinner. Shinra paid for it though, and by the end of it, Tidus let out a loud belch to signal that he was definitely full.

"It's getting pretty late. Tidus, I would like to borrow you for the next couple of hours – If you don't mind, Yuna." Shinra said pretty business-like.

"Hey I got two games tomorrow back-to-back, you sure this can't wait?"

"I would rather not put this off any further, and I promise you that you will like what I have. Besides, your games are in the afternoon if I'm not mistaken. C'mon, my time is limited, and it's ticking away." Shinra stood up and waited impatiently for a disgruntled Tidus to follow. No sooner after they exited the café did a four-seater hovercraft pull and drove the pair away.

"I wonder what Shinra has cooked up for Tidus." Rikku wondered aloud, scratching her head, "what about you, Yunie? I thought you would have tried to convince Tidus to stay."

"Hmm? Why do you say that?"

"Oh c'mon, I wasn't born yesterday you know! If someone was kissing me the way Tidus was kissing you, I wouldn't let him out of the bedroom!"

"Rikku!" Yuna chastised her cousin, barely holding back her laughter, though in her weird way, Rikku was right. Yuna was disappointed that she would have to sleep alone tonight. The organizers had assigned her a different hotel room situated in the same wing as the other important guests – business people like Shinra who are looking into sponsoring a team or political figures that will need to be convinced in order to expand the blitz league. The players were accommodated in a separate wing of the hotel, with each team occupying a single floor. Yuna knew the floor that Aurochs lived on, but amidst all the activities of the night, she had forgotten to ask Tidus which exact room he's been assigned. She wasn't about to knock door-to-door hoping to find Tidus or maybe Wakka and risk suffering the embarrassment of asking Tidus's teammates where his room was.

Maybe Rikku could help her with her dilemma, Yuna thought.

"Hmm... Rikku, can you do me a favour? I need you to find out where Tidus's is rooming from the front desk."

"You know they won't tell me that." Rikku answered.

"I'm not saying that you should _ask_ them, per se. Just... 'Liberate' the information from them okay?"

Rikku's lips formed a knowing 'o' shape when she realized what Yuna was hinting at. Hotel security was pretty tight with all the VIP's and star players gathered there, but that just presented a challenge to Rikku.

"You got it Yunie! When we get back to the hotel, just wait in my hovercraft and I'm gonna liberate that room number for you in a jiffy." Yuna smiled at the younger woman's eagerness, she always loved playing matchmaker for her and Tidus.

Rikku was true to her word, Yuna barely had to wait five minutes before Rikku opened the driver's side door and smiled from ear to ear. "Five twenty-five, here's the key" she said as she dropped a sphere key into Yuna's hands.

Yuna was taken back at the last part, but she dismissed her surprise soon after. Rikku probably thought that just the room number was too easy of a challenge. She silently thanked her cousin's zeal thanked Rikku out loud before exiting the hovercraft, leaving Rikku alone to explore Luca's night life.

Inside the hotel, Yuna entered the players' wing's lift and pressed five. She hoped that Tidus won't be too tired when he comes back from whatever Shinra had in mind for him.

The lift jerked to a stop and Yuna stepped out, happily noticing that there were no Aurochs walking about. Following the signs on the walls, Yuna arrived at room five twenty-five and opened the door with her given key.

She didn't know that the captains of each team were given a full suite. The living room was spacious, decorated with an elegant blue wall paper. A crystal chandelier hung in the centre of the room above a wooden tea table surrounded by a leather sofa set. There were also two bottles of wine sitting in a bowl, immersed in ice.

Yuna plopped herself down on the nearest couch and eyed the wine sitting in the bowl. She's not a frequent drinker, but she did develop a taste for wine. _Maybe I will indulge myself_, she thought,_ hmm on second thought, I should wait until Tidus gets back_. So instead of drinking by herself, Yuna walked over to the large window in Tidus's living room and peered outside at the city lights. To the east the stadium illuminated the surrounding sky with a soft glow. The streets leading away from the stadium were also pretty lit up, filled with young people who have just left the stadium partying the night away. Faint music travelled all the way from the streets to where Yuna stood. Clearly the partiers weren't too concerned about waking up early the next day.

The door's clicked open just then, and Tidus walked in with Shinra trailing. "...remember you only need to think in your mind which one you want, the sphere will be able to interpret it – sort of like a memory sphere. The system itself acts like a commsphere. It connects two points in space, but instead of sending through an audio and video feed..."

"Huh, how did you get in here Yuna?" Tidus cut Shinra off when he noticed the beautiful young woman by the window.

"Shhh, can't say. Or else Rikku will get in trouble." She said with a smile.

Shinra excused himself soon after. Apparently he was sponsoring the Psyches this year with some big money, confident that their new star player would win him a quick return in investment when fans of the team began buying jerseys and merchandise. Tidus scowled a little at this fact and muttered something about Shinra playing both sides, being friendly with the Besaid team while betting his chips on the Al-Bhed – to which Shinra retorted that he's not a kid anymore and can do whatever he wants with his money, regardless of who his friends are. The he said goodbye and left for the Psyches' floor.

"So," Yuna said when the door shut behind Shinra, "what did our favourite business tycoon have to show you at this time of the night, did he finally give you your swords back?"

"He did... sort of, it's a long story that's all technical mumbo-jumbo," he replied while walking up to her and moving his hand to cup the small of her back, "let's not talk about it tonight."

Yuna was still wearing her dress from earlier, and it only took a second for her to realize the effect the one-piece clothing was having on her fiancé. She relished the hunger in his eyes, even after four years of being together, he still hadn't stopped craving for her, not even after he became famous for his blitz skills and women from all over the world started swooning at his every look.

That doesn't mean that their relationship wasn't without its rocky parts, far from it. It turns out that just a couple of months travelling on the road together with five other people while being distracted by the fact that the final summoning awaited them at the end weren't a great way to start a relationship. Yuna vividly remembers a string of particularly heated arguments and how it tore her heart apart when he finally said that the two needed some time apart. In hindsight these fights were probably the result from a lot of leftover energy – the Gullwings each went their separate ways, leaving Yuna stranded on Besaid with a bunch of stuffy meetings with tourists coming to visit her; Tidus had less blitzball to occupy himself compared the never-ending blitz seasons back in Zanarkand, and no summoner to play guardian for.

But that look he had at this moment in the living room of some overly lavish hotel suite was always there. It would always creep across his face when their anger settled down late at night, their energy drained either from yelling at each other or from being reprimanded by Lulu. It was calming and loving yet laced with fiery hunger, Yuna doesn't know how he pulled it off, but then again she didn't really care.

What she wanted at this very moment was to cash in her rain check.

_BOOM_

Something exploded down the hallway. The low, powerful rumbling of explosives travelled through the walls of the room, shaking the chandelier and the wine bottles still chilling in the bowl.

What a mood breaker that was.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: For the two of you out there who have reviewed my writing, thank you! and I will keep my grammar mistakes to minimum, it's just that I multi-task way too much and some mistakes slip through the cracks every now and then.

Chapter 6

Two more explosions went off in quick succession, both smaller than the first but nonetheless adding to the tension. Both Tidus and Yuna instinctively stiffened. They exchanged looks and acknowledged to each other that something was definitely wrong.

The lights flickered twice before completely shutting off. Standing by their view point by the large living room window, they could see that the rest of Luca was none the wiser and nothing has changed – the power outage was limited.

The next sound that came through the walls was another low rumbling, this one didn't sound like it was caused by explosives. It was a low, constant drumming coming through the floor. Amidst the low hum was the unmistakably rhythmic thud of boots hitting the floor – the tempo and impact of which suggested that it came from a group, likely jogging at a steady pace.

Yuna and Tidus had to fight off the urge to peek out the door and investigate. The ominous feeling in the air made the two uneasy towards expose themselves in the dark hallway.

The sounds of the footsteps are getting louder now, along with the low humming noise. The hum had a mechanical tone to it, likely a machina. Judging by the vibrations it now sent across the floor the machina was probably large too. _How did something like that make it up the lift without alerting security?_ Thought Tidus, _there's no denying it now, this is definitely an organized assault._

His fists clenched, he had to do _something_. Although he had his reservations about Shinra's newest invention, he admitted that trusting in the twerp was probably the only way out, especially if the would-be-assailants were targeting this room.

The thudding of boots and vibration came to a stop just when their volume registered the loudest. Everything suddenly became eerily silent. Sensing what Tidus was thinking, Yuna gently squeezed his arm with her hand. When he turned his head to face her, she gently shook her hand, trying to communicate that it wasn't wise to fight what seemed like a sizable group of enemies at the moment. She had noticed how fast everything transpired, from the first explosion to the lights going off to the commotion outside in the hallway. Whoever were beyond the door at this moment are direct and disciplined, their target at this point quite obvious. If a confrontation could be avoided, there would likely be less collateral damage – after all the rest of the Aurochs, along with Lulu and Vidina, would likely get caught up in the fight.

Had she the ability the summon aeons, escape would be a breeze, just like how she escaped the Seymour's wedding – just jump out the window. But that's out of the question. Yuna had think of another way out, and fast. Any moment now the door would burst open and then she would likely forced to fight back.

"Tidus, do you think you can make it down to the ground from up here by yourself?"

"Yuna, what are you saying! I'm not abandoning..."

"I don't have time to explain, just a simple yes or no."

Tidus looked at Yuna with a concerned look. She was staring straight ahead at the door. He didn't want to leave Yuna's side at a time like this, but she seemed determined to see whatever she had planned through, and it wasn't like he an alternative.

"Yeah" he replied reluctantly.

Without given it another thought, Yuna used her garment grid and changed into her berserker dress sphere. Turning around Yuna crouched to her knees and launched herself at the pane of glass, which was no match for her momentum. Tidus's blonde hair flashed past her vision soon after.

The sound of breaking glass seemed to have triggered the belligerents outside. A single pop of an explosion and the door flung open with crack. Beams of red lasers darted about, searching for their intended targets that have just flown out of the window.

Yuna dug all four sets of claws into the brickwork of the hotel's outside walls. Her descent soon became a screeching halt. She wanted to check to see if Tidus made it down to the ground safely, but knew that she couldn't afford such a luxury. Pretty soon several gun-wielding men covered from head to toe in black ran up to the window frame.

To their surprise, a red blur shot up from below. Claws extended, Yuna scaled the face of the wall and somersaulted onto the hotel's roof eight stories above the ground before the gunmen could recover from their shock and unleash a hail of bullets upwards towards the night sky. Cursing under their breath, the gunmen abandoned their heavy machina and rapidly ascended the stairs.

When the door to rooftop access flew open, Yuna was nowhere to be found. The gunmen fan hesitated for a moment, knowing full well that they have lost the element of surprised and now have to contend with quite the formidable. One of them, who seemed to be leader among the bunch, nodded his head and urged the rest to fan out in a search pattern. There were a total of eight masked shooters and there weren't any obvious features on the rooftop for a person to hide behind, so the search soon turned up nothing.

Bewildered as to where their quarry has gone, the eight men strolled aimlessly, guns ready to fire at the slightest of movements. Now if was their turn to feel uneasy, sensing something wasn't right with the picture. The former summoner could have just as easily descended onto the ground below and disappeared among the young adults dancing the night away on the streets. Has the table turned and those who were hunters now become the hunted?

What they didn't know was that Yuna had found a ledge just below the other side of the roof, opposite to the side she landed on. Flattening herself against the wall, she quieted her breathing blocked out the faint beats of music engulfing the streets below. She listened for each contact the gunmen's boots made with the rooftop, trying to discerning the proximity of the closest pair. In her mind she went through her plan of attack. In their haste to catch up to her, her assailants had forgotten about the lasers emitters mounted on their weapons. The dust they had stirred up by strolling on the rooftop made it easy for Yuna to trace each laser to its source. She also had the cover of the darkness and surprise on her side.

A pair of boots stopped. They were close, probably right above her in fact. Tilting her head skyward, Yuna could make out the faint outlines of a gun. Now was her chance. Leaping out of her hiding spot, she used her garment grid once again, changing into her gunner dress sphere. At the apex of her jump, she trained her eyes on the unsuspecting target and tucked her legs in. Gravity took over and guided her down, and she unleashed her legs like a compressed spring. The force of her kick in addition of her momentum from the jump was struck him square in the head, instantly delivering a jarring concussion and unconsciousness.

Yuna quickly turned around and reached behind her back to draw her tiny bees. Her bangs flew past her eyes as she levelled her pistols on the two nearest sources of red lasers. Before taking her shots, she noted that the number of enemies in front of her - she won't get another chance after the muzzle flash gives her presence away.

Four bullets, two from each Tiny Bee, shot out of the twin barrels. Their targets instantly fell to the ground while Yuna darted forwards. _Two more down, five to go_. The next unfortunate gunman didn't even get to turn to face the direction of the gunshots before she was upon him. Yuna twisted her core and unleashed a powerful kick. All he saw before fading to black was her long and shapely exposed thigh arcing towards him. Her shin extended with the speedy rotation of her knee before the tip of her boot connected with his temple.

Next she dove to her right, closing the distance towards her fourth mark. Using her forearms to protect her head and her momentum to carry her into a combat roll, Yuna manoeuvred herself flush beside him. With a simple kick to take out his knees in combination with the butt of her pistol across the temple, this guy was out cold too.

The following two gunmen were straight ahead of her. A couple of quick shots and the pair slumped over.

_Last one_.

The assault team's commander stood at the door through which he had stepped out onto the rooftop. His underlings had bought him enough time to gather his wits and ready his defences. Realizing that the laser emitter betrayed him position, he quickly threw his rifle away. Sidearm in hand, the leader pressed himself into one of the walls enclosing the stairwell entrance - the only cover on this flat rooftop.

Yuna closed in, the sound of boots shuffling and a muffled thud from body meeting brick had given away the last gunman's location. She holstered the Tiny Bee in her left hand.

The commander had one more trick up his sleeve, a trump against Yuna in the form of anti-magic pulse. He didn't want to have to resort to using it. Weapons of its kind were few and far between, costly to procure, and know by little to actually exist.

It was this last fact that weighed against the use of such a weapon the most.

_But then again, what better use than to bring down the _high summoner_, well, here goes._

Once the safety pulled and triggered pressed, a red pulse erupted from and engulfed an area the size of Luca's stadium. Caught in the blast, Yuna instantly doubled over in pain. Every nerve ending in her body burned with the intensity of Besaid's bonfires. Her brain was foggy from the overload, and her muscles became jelly as a sudden fatigue gripped her body. Instinctively she tried casting a curaga, hoping to undo some of the damage. To her dismay, Yuna realized that all her magic had been drained.

Tidus rounded a corner down an alleyway, pursued by battle machina and gun-toting goons. Four of the men in the assault had team rappelled down and met up with what was probably the rest of their comrades lying in wait on the ground. Sprinting at full speed, he weaved with impressive agility through frantic onlookers.

His eyes searched for possible options for escape. Knowing that his pursuers are slow to make the corner, he had a brief moment out of their sights. A couple of doors lined the sides of the alleyway, likely back entrances to street-side business in Luca's bustling downtown area. Tidus couldn't afford any precious time checking if the doors were locked or not, so he made the decision to round the corner again and hopefully open a large enough of a gap for him to blend into the crowd. It wasn't much of plan but it's was all his adrenaline-filled head could muster.

That is until a thin crack of light rushed into the alleyway. One of the doors was held open. Someone inside had his back against the door, holding a conversation while slowly propping the door open.

Tidus closed in on the door in just a couple of strides. He yanked the door open to allow himself to barely slip, ignored the surprised look on the face on the now off-balance man and his friends, and promptly shut the door behind him - not a second too early as men and machina rounded the corner into the alleyway.

Without saying a single word Tidus made his way through what seemed to be a gift shop in a brisk pace to the front door. Peeking outside through the cracks in the blinds beside the door to make sure the danger has passed, he stepped outside. To his left was the corner that allowed for his getaway, to the right was his hotel.

He had to make sure Yuna was alright. The brilliant muzzle flashes of Tiny Bees going off on the rooftop highlighted his destination.

Yuna blinked away as much haziness away from her eyes as she could. The faint outline of the last gunmen still standing emerged from behind cover. She was out in the open, he was armed with a pistol.

Yuna could barely direct the muscles in her legs to do anything beyond twitching, she was stuck for now. She had to force her foggy brain to come up with possible options, some way to come turn the tables.

The commander levelled his gun to deliver the final blow.

"Yuna!", the stairwell door flung open and Tidus darted toward to Yuna's quivering form.

_Good, now I can take out both of them._

Yuna's eyes trained themselves on man with a pistol pointed at her head, trying to communicate to Tidus what she couldn't through words. Her muscles were still non-functional and she could barely struggle for breath.

Tidus heard the faint clicking of a gun in the background, but all he could think about at the moment was Yuna. Even in the absence of light, he could tell she was in distress, her breathing was shallow and laboured and her arms draped at her sides. Without much thought he dashed towards her, wrapped his arms around her weakened body and used his momentum to carry the two into a dive.

At the same time commander pulled the trigger on his pistol. The bullet exploded out of the barrel and ripped through the night air before burying itself in flesh.

Fragments of lead and bone whizzed past Yuna's head after the bullet worked its way through Tidus's shoulder. Blood splattered on her cheeks and her eyes, but she didn't even blink - far too stunned to registered the irritation.

"Tidus" she whispered his name as they landed on the ground with a hard thump.

The rush of adrenaline seemed to work wonders for her muscle control though. Still on the ground she aimed the Tiny Bee still in her hand through her blood-filled vision and shot.

A loud clang indicated that she had hit something, and the impact of the commander's pistol confirmed that she had at least disarmed her opponent. Yuna stumbled away from under Tidus, who was writhing in pain, and managed to struggle to her feet through sheer willpower. She was going to make this man pay.

She lined up another shot and pulled the trigger, intent on ending the fight. To her dismay, the gun clicked empty. See his chance, the commander reached for a knife holstered in a shin strap. Weapon in hand, he charged at Yuna, making a stabbing motion towards her midsection.

Yuna barely managed to see the incoming attack in time. She jumped back in hopes of creating some space between her and the knife. In her induced clumsiness however, she tripped on her landing and fell on her back. Seeing his golden chance, the commander put both hands on the hilt of knife and prepared to drive the knife downwards into her.

He didn't count on Tidus sweeping his legs from under his weight. He fell on his side.

Knowing that Tidus is bleeding badly from the gaping hole in his shoulder, Yuna told herself that she had end this fight soon and get him to a healer. She had to take a gamble - she launched herself at her lone enemy, her mind set on wrangling control of the knife away from him.

His hold was strong however, and the two combatants locked together into a tumbling struggle for life. At the end of it all, tucked a booted foot into the space between the two and kicked Yuna away - knife still in hand.

He could see Tidus pulling out a commsphere and signalling for help, not that he could do anything about it. Their tumble had taken him quite a distance away from the injured blitzer, plus there was a pissed off high summoner to contend with. He was on a time limit now too.

Yuna stood up again, frustrated that her gamble didn't pay off. She still had another Tiny Bee tucked away at her waist. Under normal conditions she would have no problems drawing the gun and taking the shot, but this was far from her normal conditions. No, she had probably only one chance to counter the commander's next attack. She had to calm herself and tried to anticipate his moves.

The commander charged again, this time with a downward slash.

Yet unfortunately for him, Yuna saw the attack coming a split second too early. She hooked an arm onto his and spun her body away from the knife's path. The carry-through of his swing sliced off a few brunette hairs. Following through with her spin, she delivered an elbow to the back of his neck. The pain that shot up his body forced to relinquish his grip on the knife - right into Yuna's hand.

Using the butt of the knife, Yuna landed a blow to the crown of his head with as much force as she could muster. His vision turned black, his knees buckled, and his eyes rolled into the back of his skull. A commsphere dropped out of his pockets and rolled towards Yuna, who at this point had used up all her strength and all but collapsed to the ground. For the next few minutes, she drifted in and out of consciousness. She wanted desperately to get to her badly injured fiancé, but the adrenaline that released the moment Tidus was shot finally wore off and left her a limp heap of muscle and bone on the ground.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Reuploaded this chapter because I wasn't happy with the ending, I feel a little better about it now, but it could still change

Chapter 7

"Hey Yunie, you hungry?" Rikku's head poked out through a thin opening in the door. The tiny, darkly-lit room they were in was a make-shift infirmary and Tidus was resting on a bed that took up a third of the room.

"What's for breakfast?" Yuna asked softly in return, she didn't really feel hungry at all, but the healers had warned her against skipping meals.

"Just hot soup really, it was all I could conjure up." Rikku answered as she opened the door the rest of the way and carefully walked in.

Yuna was sitting on a chair situated beside the bed. She had woken up soon after rescue shuttles and Youth League soldiers converged on the rooftop of the hotel. She was relieved to find that whatever the hit squad's commander had used on her was wearing off.

One of the healers speculated that it was an anti-magic blast, something that instantly burns away the magic reserves in any mage – the more powerful the mage, the more adverse the effects. He had also advised against the use of ethers for the time being, since any lingering anti-magic would burn away the restored magic and just cause her more pain.

Rikku set a tray down on Yuna's lap, made her to the other side of the bed and squatted down. "Is he gonna be alright?" she wondered out loud.

Yuna took in a spoonful of the hot soup before answering softly, "the healers closed the wound, but he did lose a lot of blood beforehand, so I guess we have to wait until he recovers. Who knows how long that will take..."she trailed off at the end.

Yuna hated waiting around and doing nothing, it made her feel powerless. She even hated watching the inexperienced healers working their magic away at Tidus's bleeding shoulder. Their white magic was sloppy and inefficient at best compared to hers, but she what could she do? Nothing, nothing at all.

And now Nooj and Baralai had cooped her up in a tiny house off to the side on the Mi'ihen Highroad, posted several squads of guards for protection, and told her to lay low until they got to the bottom of the attack. That was just spreading salt on the wound to her. It was bad enough that Tidus took a bullet for her, but the League and Yevon are babying her too? It was as if she was a summoner on her pilgrimage again with her guardians all but too eager to step in harm's way for her sake.

Warm sunlight began to seep through the cracks in the blinds, signalling the arrival of a new day. Aside from the half-hour Yuna spent unconscious on the hotel rooftop, she hadn't slept a wink. The tiredness had set in several hours ago, but she didn't want to sleep. Even if it was out of her control, she wanted to make sure Tidus was going to fine, probably just to set her mind at ease.

There was a knock on the door, and Rikku rushed up to open it even though Yuna was closer.

"Uhh, Lady Yuna? There's a young woman on your commsphere, she said she wanted to speak to you alone."

_Young woman? Could it be Paine?_ Yuna thought, forgetting the fact that her commsphere was actually still in the wrecked hotel room back in Luca. Only when she took the sphere and saw Rikku and the guard out the door did she realize her lapse in memory.

The image in the sphere was not that of Paine. Instead it was a woman who couldn't have been much older than Yuna herself if not the same age. She had shoulder-length raven hair, the bangs of which were framed around her face in a heart shape. She had a fair and even complexion with creamy, pale skin. Her features were small and exotically beautiful and she had a sultry look about her that would turn a man's knees into mush.

But the first things Yuna noticed were her eyes. It was as if she was looking into a mirror – one eye was green, the other blue.

"What's wrong Lady Yuna, didn't think you were the only half-breed out there, did you?" her tone had a unique purr to it, as if she was trying to seduce any man who wasn't already captivated by her looks.

"Who are you?" Yuna asked.

"Judging by the fact that you are holding this sphere," the other woman ignored the question, "my mercenaries must have failed... I expected as much, you are the great high summoner of the eternal calm after. Still, those guys I hired weren't cheap you know? What a waste of good gil."

"Mercenaries? _You_ are the one who sent them to kill me?" Yuna's shock managed to somehow mask her anger for the time being, "why?"

"Why don't you turn on a telesphere and find out? The stadium broadcast would do, I'll call you back afterwards." The signal ended there.

Bewildered, Yuna turned on the small telesphere that sat opposite Tidus's bed and turned to the stadium broadcast just as she was told. Everything was normal, down to the normal bantering between Bobba and Jimma. The tournament was about to kick into full gear, with all six teams competing today in the group stages. Even the Aurochs were ready to give the audience a good show, even if their captain and star player was lying on a bed in the middle of nowhere, injured and unable to play. The media only know that Tidus was hurt in an accident – the real reason effectively covered-up by Nooj and Baralai. The two had also tightened security around the stadium, Youth league and New Yevon guards were visibly present among the crowd and posted at every entrance.

Yet Yuna couldn't shake the feeling of uneasiness. She made the decision to call Nooj and Baralai and tell them about the mysterious woman and their short and cryptic conversation.

Before she could have informed the two leaders however, Jimma's panicked voice cut through the lazy morning atmosphere.

"F-f-folks, it...it appears that have several armed men have busted into the broadcast booth," he stammered, "I have been told that everyone is to turn their attention...to the centre stage."

On cue, the life beneath the stage came to life. Two figures slowly began to show. One of them was the woman from earlier in the commsphere, the other was a middle-aged man. The woman dressed in a crimson red shirt with its collars slightly popped and sleeves puffed out. The first few buttons were loose, revealing the top of her ample cleavage. Her long legs were wrapped in a pair skin-tight black jeans as dark as her hair. The pants continued into a pair of high-heel boots that reached mid-way up her shins that were much the same colour.

Her companion was starkly unassuming standing next to her. His head was down, eyes fixed the ground between his own feet. His hair was unkempt and fell to somewhere between his ears and his shoulders. The clothes he was wearing were tattered and ripped in several places. Even though he was considerably taller than the raven-haired woman, his presence paled in comparison.

The crowd was excusably anxious, questions and comments were thrown about with zero coherency, ranging from "Check out the hot chick!" to "Who is that man?"

"Ladies and gentleman," she started. Her voice, despite being amplified in order to address the entire stadium, still maintained its sensual purr. She kicked back her left boot and swept her right hand to her waist in a bow before continuing. "I hope you don't mind this little hostile takeover of sorts, but I would ask all of you to remain calm and seated. My men tend to have very itchy trigger fingers."

The last comment stunned the crowd into a deafening silence.

"Oh and I wouldn't count on your precious Youth League and New Yevon security to do a damn thing. Look towards your nearest exits if you have doubts."

To prove her point, dead bodies of the security guards posted at every entrance rolled down the steps into the sitting below. The sphere recorder filming for the now hijacked broadcast captured every second of this.

Yuna couldn't believe her eyes and ears. This woman standing at the centre of the stadium was shattering the eternal calm, for which she had worked so hard and sacrificed and suffered so much, right in front of her eyes.

"It's laughable really, how easily my men and I had gotten past security. Sure every spectator gets checked on the way in, but they'd never suspect the players!"

"On that note, please welcome those who you all though were the Luca Goers!" The raven-haired woman was now practically mocking all of Spira, even imitating Bobba and Jimma when she introduced the Goers.

Or rather, her men disguised as Goers using garment grids. They deactivated their grids upon the sphere recorder turning to face them.

_They must have gotten the hit squad into the hotel too_, thought a now furious Yuna. It would have been easy, the Goers were housed on the floor right below the Aurochs, even the machina could have been carried up piece by piece and assembled inside the hotel.

"I came here today before each and every single one of you," the mystery woman turned more serious, her already impressive presence on stage suddenly became even more so, "to bring you a message, to speak for those who don't have a voice."

"For too long has Spira's elite enjoyed their eternal calm. Look around you, look at those sitting beside you. All of you have clothes to keep you warm, food to keep you fed, and homes to keep you sheltered. You have jobs, income, families, and opportunities – things that most of you have taken for granted. You all _have_."

"And so in your eternal bliss, most of you turn a blind eye towards those who have _not_. Even worse, some of you have taken to take advantage of and oppress those who have nothing. Which brings me to this man standing beside me. Please, introduce yourself to the eager audience."

The broadcast feed zoomed in on the miserable man along with the hostage spectators, and although Yuna didn't recognize him at first, she soon recalled who he was. He had once asked for her hand in marriage, the son of the former chairman of New Yevon.

"My name...my name is Kadira." He sounded weak and his meager voice soon trailed off.

"Kadira here was once in line to succeed New Yevon's leadership, even betrothed to your beloved high summoner. I'm sure how you have all heard that he and his father were replaced because of their abuse of power." Everyone immediately focused their attention back onto the woman.

"But what you haven't heard was how he had abused the young girls housed in Bevelle's temple, young girls who lost their parents to Sin just a year ago when it crashed into the city, young girls who turned to the temple out of desperation because they couldn't survive on their own." She finished off her accusation before turning to Kadira and asking "I should spare them the graphic details, don't you think Kadira?"

All he did was nod in defeat. Tremors of shock rang through the audience as the speech continued.

"Stories like his are unfortunately all too common around the world. While you were all too busy building up your lives, young orphans who lost their parents were left with nothing. Soon even the temples closed their doors, apparently to poor to help them."

"But we all know what a lie that was, don't we. No, the temples had plenty of money, and so did the League, but they all decided to hoard it all themselves. For the past six years, the upper echelons of Spira reaped the rewards of limitless energy and advanced machina, while the orphans left by Sin and fiend attacks drifted into the underworld. Those who were too weak either starved or surrendered themselves to people like Kadira here and were treated like garbage."

"Those who were the strongest _survived_, and now _we_ stand before you, united and willing to speak up for our subjugated and mistreated brethren. We were born to this world not when we emerged from our mothers' wombs, but when Sin rained down its last will of devastation. We are baptized through Sin's destruction. We _are_ the Children of Sin!"

With that final resounding sentence, she reached into her shirt and produced a pistol and then landed a kick to the back of Kadira's knee. He fell to the ground, kneeling.

"Let this be a declaration of war - we wish to challenge the established order of your Youth Leagues and your New Yevons. Bring on their weak-willed soldiers! We will crush them into the earth like they have tried us. Know that we will succeed where they have failed! And by the end of it all, Spira will be a changed world, and the playing field will be even once again."

She cocked her pistol and shot a single bullet point blank into the back of Kadira's skull.

His skull practically exploded and his body fell to the ground. The broadcast feed immediately cut off and left the telesphere with nothing but static.

Yuna didn't know what to think. She was conflicted. She knew that the eternal calm was far from perfect, but the sudden revelation certainly did leave her mind spinning. _I couldn't have possibly been this blind,_ she tried to reason with herself,_ to have thing get so far out of hand..._

"Someone better explain what happened!" Yuna clenched her fists as she let out her frustration. The balls she made with her fists were so tight that her nails dug into the skin, missing out on drawing blood just by a hair's width. Her eyes glared and jaw muscles flexed, daring anyone to intrude in her brooding.

As if the other woman was psychic, the commsphere from earlier buzzed, and the familiar face materialized.

"I hope you enjoyed my little show Lady Yuna." She purred.

There was no response from Yuna, merely a glare brimming with fury - much like the look she had given Seymour on their shammed wedding day, but this time her features were hardened, more mature, and all but communicated her will to destroy.

"Woo, that is the _best_ killer look I have ever seen." The other woman mockingly winced, thoroughly enjoying the effect she was having on her fellow half Al-Bhed.

"I can't understand you." Yuna finally spoke. Her voice was emotionless, betraying none of the spite hidden underneath - a talent she developed during the days she spent dealing with those who sought to take advantage of her unique position in among the people of Spira. "You would openly declare war on all of Spira just to stand up for your so-called brethren?" _I know you are hiding something under that purring of yours_, _just like Yevon and Mika did._

"Why not? Do you disagree that it is a just cause? To bring equality to those who weren't dealt a fair hand is reason enough to level _every_ city in Spira!" The passion in her voice, it disturbed Yuna a great deal. There was something about this woman that scared her.

"I agree with your ideals, just not your methods." Yuna responded.

"Then you are just another coward," the other woman snapped back, "just like everybody else fattening themselves up in this eternal calm of yours. All of you are only too happy to watch people like me beg and starve on the streets."

_Coward? How dare she._ Yuna's body was struggling to contain the rage boiling within

_I can't let her get to me like this,_ she spoke inwardly, _she's the one that called me, she must have planned every sentence ahead of time_.

With that she brought a fake smile to her face, softening her hardened continence. If she was going to get anything useful out of this conversation, she needs to remain collected.

"You treat me like an enemy, sending your hit squads of mercenaries and your machina in the middle of the night, but I am just like you in a way. I _too_ lost my parents to Sin at a young age..."

"And how you have turned out, right? You are telling me that you didn't give into hatred, that you eventually fought back against your Yevonite oppressors and won?"

Yuna needed to stop being so predictable.

"Your father redeemed himself in the eyes of Spira's elites, he was a hero among the people for bringing the calm! Don't think for a second that you know how much I have suffered," the other woman spoke, _as if she was making another speech_._ Damn, I fell for it again, she _wanted_ to compare our heritage._

"My mother was hung for baring the child of an Al-Bhed man and my father for bludgeoned to death my her family for bring the corruption of machina and Al-Bhed into the family. People said that she was a whore who give in to Sin's temptations right to my face. You were the poster child of Yevon, daughter of the man who redeemed himself after being corrupted by Al-Bhed blood. I was the unaccepted half-breed who scraped the bottom of trash cans."

She had an air of triumph about her that only swelled with each word. "Like it or not, my lady, this world will change."

"You think you can take on the Youth League and New League by yourselves? You are just guiding all those orphans who scraped the bottom of the barrel to survive into a war they can't possibly win." Yuna winced as a smile begin to develop on the other woman's face, realizing again she had just said exactly what was expected of her.

"Yuna, don't be so naive, it doesn't suit you very well. Let me ask you this, how do you think we knew of your tryst with that blond blitzer, hmm? We didn't attack your assigned suite now did we?"

She paused a moment to let her comment sink in.

"Are you saying I was followed?" Yuna asked in disbelief - she was normally careful about these things, wanting nothing but privacy when it came to her relationship wit Tidus.

"We have eyes and ears everywhere, my lady. From Youth League headquarters, to the Praetor's in Bevelle, to the Al-Bhed home on the Bikanel Desert, to the Machine Faction's factories in Djose, the Children of Sin have spies everywhere. You think we don't know about your silver-headed friend who our dear Praetor keeps as a mistress? Or the fights your uncle and your two cousins constantly get into? Or your betrothal to your former guardian?"

Yuna shook her head in dismay, there was no way that these self proclaimed Children of Sin had the resources to keep up surveillance on everyone she cared about. _But...everything she said was right._

The woman tapped a finger on her chin, contemptuously pretending to contemplate something. "In fact, take a look at this little recording."

The commsphere turned dark before another image materialized. It was one of Wakka and Lulu sleeping peacefully sandwiching little Vidina between the two of them. He clung to his mother and she had held him in a motherly embrace. Wakka was on his back, mouth gaping and snoring away blissfully.

A shadow appeared out of nowhere and crept towards the bed. In another second the woman with the distinct shoulder length raven hair came into view with her back facing the recorder. She hovered above the sleeping trio and lingered there for a just a brief moment, then turned to reveal a sultry smile. She waved to the recorder and extended her right hand, poking out her index and thumb as if her hand were a gun. _BANG_, she mouthed with her lips while recoiling her hand, pretending to shoot at Lulu, _BANG_, she shot Vidina, _BANG, _she took out Wakka. Then she blew a puff of air at the tip of her index finger as if it was smoking from the explosions of gunpowder before disappearing again into the background. The recording subsequently shut off.

Yuna's face couldn't hold the horror she had felt inside and her fiery shoulders sagged in defeat. Wakka, Lulu, and Vidina meant the world to Yuna, along with the rest of her friends. She had always wanted to protect those around her, to let them enjoy the eternal calm in peace. But this woman she was talking to had proved to Yuna how little protection she could really offer. Even herself was proven to be quite vulnerable. Against this new enemy that she didn't know anything about, Yuna could do nothing but watch as everything around her spins so wildly out of control.

"Believe me, Lady Yuna, we are well aware of the strength of the Youth League and New Yevon. We have kept a watchful eye on them, among _other_s, for quite a while." The purring this time had a victorious touch, "It's funny really, we here on our side are constantly looking over our shoulders, paranoid that the League or New Yevon had just as much surveillance on us as we had on them, that they knew what we were preparing for, when the truth of it was that you really know nothing about us!"

"So... what was the point of this call. You knew the outcome of this conversation all along." Yuna let out a overwhelmed sigh, "did you just do this to show your power over me? Over the rest of Spira?"

"Hmm, you are right, more or less. But I do have my other reasons, a girl's gotta keep some secrets after all." Once again the woman in the sphere mockingly pondered for a moment, "by the way, to answer your question earlier, the name is Nevelyn. It's been a pleasure, my lady."

The comm link broke right after the last two scornful, yet still trademark sultry words.

* * *

To be honest, Nevelyn never meant to give away her name, but she thought she should at least give the high summoner something for her troubles.

_To kill a snake, you have to cut off its head, it's that simple_. But she didn't want Yuna dead, at least, not yet. For her death would make her a martyr in the eyes of the public, a flag to rally behind. No, Nevelyn was determined to cripple the snake before dealing the final blow to Yuna.

Today was just a show of power, it was needed to keep her at bay for the time being. Although it cost her a few sacrificial mercs on the side, in the end, giving Yuna a taste of what she was capable of was well worth it.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Paine finished her final deliveries for Rin for the day. They weren't anything terribly interesting really, just replacement parts for malfunctioning in one of his many construction projects sprawling up in Bevelle. To be honest, she was thinking of quitting her job at Rin's – it was just getting too mundane. Even the fiends she had to kill these days were too weak to remotely put up a fight, and that was the highlight of her job.

She smiled inwardly for a moment, realizing that she actually missed her days flying around and sphere hunting with Rikku and Yuna.

As if to relieve some of her pent-up boredom, she sped down the streets of Bevelle in a blur on her hovercraft dashing in and out of traffic, relishing in the angry comments from pedestrians and drivers who she had just scared the crap out of. The rush of evening wind in her face and the way it swept back her silver-grey hair was just a bonus.

All too soon she arrived at the Bevelle temple. She parked her hovercraft and pulled her goggles up away from her scarlet eyes. She knew her way around the building like the back of her hand, especially the secret passageways that weaved about in the palace. The place was always crawling with tourists and stuffy New Yevon members, not her cup of tea. Paine normally came here for one reason only – Baralai. Sure their relationship may be a little scandalous, but she didn't want to be tied down and he can't really have one without the unbearable scrutiny that came with the territory. So in a way, what they had was perfect.

To her surprise, two guards stopped her at the entrance. Baralai's men usually let her through without question, under the pretense that she was here for business – which sometimes was true.

"Ma'am, we are going to ask you to follow us, the Praetor's orders." One of the guards said, from the look of his uniform, he was the superior among the two, a captain in fact.

"And where are you going to be taking me, _captain_?" Paine felt a little disturbed, something wasn't right. She knew layout of the temple just as well as any of the New Yevon men, Baralai knew that. He wouldn't send escorts, just a messenger at most.

"Don't take this the wrong way ma'am, we are just escorting you to the Praetor. Simple security precautions, we are all on edge after what happened in Luca this morning."

Paine squinted at the response. She had been on the road all morning, so she didn't really know what the guard was talking about.

"You'll have to explain on the way then, captain."

The two walked Paine inside the temple and towards the lift. The captain led the way while his subordinate trailed behind Paine. _Another strange thing,_ Paine thought, _the guy back there seems awfully tense_.

"May I ask your name, Captain? I don't recognize your voice, you must have been one of the new transfers from the Calm Lands."

The lift arrived with a ding and the door slid open. "The name's Faust and you are right. The sergeant here and I just transferred here from the Calm Lands."

Paine simply nodded knowingly and followed Captain Faust into the lift.

Then suddenly she delivered a powerful kick to the head of the trailing sergeant behind her before he can enter with them. With her right palm she struck the Faust in the throat, with her left she pressed the button to seal the door.

"Dumbass, I've met all the transfers from the Calm Lands. And you are not one of them."

Faust backed away and made a move to draw his sidearm, but Paine was smart enough to flick off the power to the lift, with a shudder the lights inside died off.

One of the many benefits of delivering for Rin is the abundance of gadgets he hands out. Among those is a pair of night-vision goggles for those nights she would spend driving on unlit roads away from the major cities.

She could see Faust, but the poor fake captain couldn't see her. He fired blindly with his gun, the Hail Mary bullets striking nothing but air before burying themselves in metallic walls. Paine grabbed his outstretched gun arm with both of her hands. Using her hip as a fulcrum, she flipped Faust over her back and on to the ground. The last thing the stunned Faust felt was a painful kick from Paine's boot connecting with his temple.

Paine flipped the power back on and bent down for the gun. Gunplay was always Yuna's thing, but it will have to make do for now with her sword still strapped to the hovercraft. She silently cursed herself for giving up the use of garment grids in favour of devoting her training to the use swords exclusively.

_Baralai better have a good explanation for this_, Paine thought while press the button for his floor.

When the lift door was about to open again, Paine pressed her back into the command panel and readied her commandeered handgun. _Better safe than sorry._ When she was sure nothing malevolent greeted her on the other side, she quickly stepped out and cautiously made her way to the office at the end of the hall.

The double door was open, and she could see him, back hunched and head buried in what seemed like a mountain of paper. He looked up at when he heard the familiar sound of Paine's boots hitting the marble floor and smiled. But the smile soon faded into worry when he saw the rigidness of her face and the gun she clutched in her hands. For a brief, terrifying second, he had thought that his sexual liaison for the past two years was in fact a spy for the Children of Sin, and that she was coming to kill him.

That fear soon was replaced by a new one, when Paine was up close enough for him to see the fire burning in those cerise eyes. The anger inside was almost tangible – anger that would soon, in all likelihood, be directed at him. He would rather die.

She slammed the gun on his desk, knocking loose a few stacks of paperwork while doing so. "This one of the guns you issued to your guards?" She demanded.

"Looks like it." Baralai replied with his normal cool and collected tone, though he was feeling nothing but cool and collected on the inside.

"The how did it get in the hands of an imposter who tried to shoot me in the back?" – It wasn't really what happened, but Paine had no doubt that Faust had every intention to shoot her when she let her guard down. "At least one of them is still running loose down on the ground floor doing who knows what."

Baralai averted her gaze and went into deep thought. If what Paine said was true then she was probably the only person in this building he could trust.

"Paine, lock the door and sit down. We...have a lot to talk about."

* * *

Nooj spent the previous night on the road, travelling from his comfortable residence at the Youth League headquarters to Luca. He had heard of the commotion at the hotel and wanted to find out the reason behind the failed attempt on the high summoner's life. To him, the whole thing made no sense. Yuna was loved among the people and earned praise wherever she went – new upstart political groups lined themselves up for a chance at her support. She also had next to zero play among the major businesses around Spira, she wasn't even willing to shell out a single endorsement. Besides, this was the woman who took down Sin and Vegnagun, not to mention countless fiends – powerful ones like Paragon. Who would be stupid enough to even try to kill her?

He was thankful that Yuna was a merciful shot. The Youth League's initial reports have indicated that only one of the assailants apprehended actually died. The others were either in serious condition or simply knocked out, giving him plenty of subjects to interrogate.

So he and his highest ranking men, including Lucil and Maroda, spent a tireless night working all sorts of angles on the prisoners, trying to make them talk. Yet they somehow managed to feign enough stupidity to outlast their captors the entire night. Frustration was beginning to show, with the prisoners getting the proverbial upper hand, much to Nooj's chagrin. So before his men's anger got out of control, he decided to cut the night short. Well, as short as it could have been when you go to sleep at the crack of dawn.

Though that doesn't mean he was willing to give the prisoners a break. He had put up a make-shift jail in the deserted outskirts of Luca with loud speakers pumping near-deafening amounts of noise into every cell. He wasn't above resorting to torture when it gets him results, and he had worse techniques up his sleeve if sleep deprivation proved to be futile. The whole incident at the stadium the next morning – which left eight of the Youth League guards and four more from New Yevon dead or dying – made him even more determined to pry open his prisoners' sealed lips.

So imagine his surprise when he was greeted by the sight of ruined rubble where his prison sat just the night before. The only survivors were a couple of guards he had posted at the door to make sure no prying eyes went inside the building – not that anybody frequented the area around the site.

The group of captured hitmen were practically overkilled. Every bone in their bodies was shattered and their internal organs virtually turned into mush, it was a gruesome sight to behold, and Nooj couldn't help but think that someone _really_ wanted to shut them up. _Probably that lady from the stadium_, he said to himself.

When his men sifted through the sphere recorder image from the attack, nothing in particular jumped out at them. The jail had somehow imploded with enough force to crush everything and everyone inside just when sunlight began to shine through the windows.

"Gather every Youth League men that came to Luca last night, I don't care what they are doing. They are to drop everything and report here as soon as possible. Should they refuse, kill them. We have a mole in our ranks." Nooj ordered.

* * *

Tidus woke with a searing pain in his wounded shoulder. He swore under his breath as he tried to sit up, _some bang-up job those healers did_. He's been wounded in battle before many times, but Yuna always healed him with white magic powerful enough to leave him with practically no pain at all. So often in fact, that he had began to take her impressive talents for granted.

With the aid of the fading sunlight he surveyed the tiny room he was in. The last thing he remembered was being carried in a stretcher while being tended to by those healers he was now cursing. The telesphere was left on but showed nothing except static. There was also a bowl of what seemed like soup sitting on a tray not too far from his bed. Assuming it was left for him, Tidus reached over to grab the tray while shifting into a comfortable enough position to accommodate it in his lap.

As soon as he put a spoonful of the liquid in his mouth however, he spat it out. It was cold, and he didn't like cold soup – hot soup was another thing Yuna spoiled him with.

"Blehhhh, who made this?" On top of its temperature, Tidus also took exception to its bitter after taste.

His voice seemed to have triggered a reaction on the other side of the door. A girlish figure soon opened it, and Tidus squinted to shield his eyes from the setting sun behind whoever it was.

"Yuna?" He asked expectantly.

"Hmph, _I_ made that soup you know! And you weren't supposed to drink it, it was for Yunie!" The high-pitched voice of Rikku pierced Tidus's ears.

_So much for being her favourite cousin_.

"Hey, are you feeling alright? Look...I didn't mean to sound to mean, how about I get you something else. You must be hungry." Rikku's tone suddenly turned soft, so soft in fact that Tidus finally believed that she was actually related to Yuna. It scared him a little.

"Uhhh, Rikku? How long have I been out? And where's Yuna?" Tidus asked anxiously.

"Oh, don't ask so many questions. You just woke up!" In just a few short seconds, Rikku's tone turned from angry to soft to sheepish. Tidus didn't say anything, he only stared back with renewed intensity, silently ordering Rikku to answer with the truth.

"Well, don't freak out okay? You only slept through the entire day, and...Yunie...she went out by herself for a walk."

"What! You let her go for a walk by herself! After someone tried to _kill_ her last night!" Despite Rikku's telling him not to freak out, Tidus was freaking out.

"You were both targeted you know! And you were unconscious! I couldn't leave you alone and go with Yuna, not after Nooj told all of his guards to leave! Blame her, don't blame poor little me." Rikku lashed back defensively before letting her voice fade on the last sentence.

Seeing the normally upbeat young Al-Bhed so down on herself calmed Tidus down somewhat. Besides she was right, Yuna did kind of put her in a bind. He took in a deep breath and tried to soothe his voice, "hey you know where I can find a decent enough healer for this shoulder? It still hurts like hell."

Rikku mood shifted upwards at the change in subject and gave a simple nod. "Yunie thought you might still be hurting when you woke up, so she left me this." She said as she took out a beaker filled with a pinkish red liquid. "She said it was some kind of slow acting potion that repairs deeper than the magic the other healers used. Or...something that."

Tidus gave her a sceptical look, but Rikku didn't seem to notice. Instead she just about forced the liquid down his throat before gleefully announcing she was going to make dinner for the two of them.

Afterwards he ate silently while Rikku filled him in on all the happenings of the day and what Yuna had absent mindedly informed her about the conversation over the commsphere with Nevelyn. Pretty soon his mind drifted away from Rikku's voice, convinced that he had registered the most important points. Now he was thinking about Yuna. Sure, she was no longer the helpless summoner during their pilgrimage and it would be hard pressed to imagine anyone stubborn enough to come at her again when he thinks rationally. But he understands Yuna too well to say that she was alright.

Yuna is an idealist and always _had_ to devote herself to and believe in something, it was in her nature. She was dedicated to and believed in the eternal calm, that was how she managed to keep herself together during the two years he was gone. That was how she had managed to always give more than a hundred percent of her effort in helping the people of Spira renew their world. Tidus had long since lost count of how many times Yuna had passed out sitting up under a tree, on a bench, or in the middle of nowhere leaning against him because she had to tend to visitors who wished to seek the advice of the high summoner, to heal victims of an industrial accident in some little town with no available healers, or, his personal favourite, to read to and play with the children of Besaid because they merely demanded it. It was the same as when she had dedicated herself to and believed in the false teachings of Yevon. When that belief and dedication, strong as they are, shatters around her feet, her spirit just shatters along with it.

"Hey Rikku? Where are we right now exactly? I don't recognize the landscape." He finally decided to speak up.

Rikku gulped down a mouthful of food, oblivious to the fact that Tidus had been off in his little world. "We are in a little hut off to the Highroad. Luca's not that far away, but there's no way anyone can find this place without where to look."

Tidus thought for a second before putting down his food. The pain in his should now gone, he felt suddenly energetic - but that could also be because he thinks he knows where Yuna went.

"C'mon Rikku, let's go find Yuna! She must be hungry too."

"Wait...You know where she went off to?"

"I have a hunch."

A/N: Thanks for those who reviewed this story, keep them coming!

Update: It seems that I have overlooked the fact that doesn't import a document perfectly. It had left out some of the horizontal line breaks that I use to skip ahead in time or switch away from my two main characters' perspective. I have re-inserted them in this chapter and in some of the older ones but I know a lot of them are still missing. I will get to those when I summon the effort required. Thank you for the reviews so far, but I want more please.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: I'm just inserting this author's note in as an update on this chapter because Ch. 10 is turning out to be my longest one yet and it may take another couple of days to be posted. I want to thank those readers who spent their time reviewing my story, your encouragement is appreciated. I think I'm getting the hang of writing narratives like this one. As a response to one of the guest reviewers: if you want your reviews to show up on the summary of this story, you have to log in as a user. Anonymous and guest reviews don't count towards the the review numbers on the front page. It's really not that big of a deal since I still see them, but logging in is quite easy. Just use your facebook/twitter/google account. I personally use google, just because it's obscure enough that I get a little privacy. B-T-Dubs, next chapter has a lemon.

Chapter 9

Tidus and Rikku made their way down the Mi'ihen Highroad towards where the city of Luca's low-lying landscape meets the higher altitude plateau. Sure enough they found Yuna looking towards the southern harbour with her back to them. The setting sun illuminated the entire scene, tinting her creamy skin a golden hue and dying her hair a deep red. Her arms were folded across her midsection and rested on the railings, supporting the rest of the weight of her upper body that leaned forward. One of her legs was set straight, the other bent at the knee just a little so that only the toe of her boot contacted the ground. She would often stand like this and swap the postures of her legs, being unable to stand still for lengthy periods of time – one of Tidus's many traits of impatience.

When she was feeling particularly happy, the toe of her boot would involuntarily tap the ground to the beat of some tune she was humming in her head. When she was angry her back would be stiff as a board and her bent leg would be twisting about her toe, as if she was trying to squash a bug under that boot. Tidus was quite proud of himself that he had learned to read these signals over the years – they are quite useful, allowing him some mental preparation before initiating a conversation.

But the Yuna he saw before him was markedly different from what he was used to seeing. Her legs didn't even twitch a muscle, her shoulders and back slackened with lethargy, and she hadn't even bothered to lift a finger to brush aside the locks of hair dangling loosely in front of her eyes. Aside from the expansion and contraction of her chest, Yuna was no different from a really life-like statue.

Tidus knew why Yuna came to this spot. She probably thought that her memory of it would at least induce a little laughter – a welcoming anesthetic for her inner turmoil. He just didn't know if it was working.

"Hey Rikku, wait here for a second okay?" Rikku was about to open her mouth and protest, Tidus's firm shake of his head stopped her before she uttered a word. It wasn't that Tidus felt he had to talk to Yuna alone, just that Rikku's energy can make people feel a little...overwhelmed when it came to expressing their minds.

So Rikku took to standing at a spot off to the side on the dirt road while Tidus his way towards Yuna.

As soon as his foot stepped off the muffling dirt and made a clanking sound with the hard floor of the platform Yuna jumped and drew one of her Tiny Bees. She spun around just to see the shocked face of Tidus down the pistol's sights. Her instant reaction was to jerk her trigger finger away, as far from the mechanism as she could. Upon realizing how close she was about to put another bullet in Tidus, her heart almost leapt out of her heaving chest. Her breathing suddenly became shallow and rapid. Her mismatched irises dilated so much that the excess amount of light filtering in shot blinding white dots into her already overtaxed brain.

"Damn it!" She screamed, whipping her hand back, letting go of the grip of the gun in her hand, and sending it crashing to the hard ground. The impact of the gun on the ground discharged the round in the chamber in a loud bang.

Thankfully the bullet only buried itself in nearby wall.

Silence soon followed when neither of the lovers said a word. Yuna stood at the same spot, her body frozen by the unintended gunshot, afraid to take in the environment for fear that she might have inadvertently hurt someone. Tidus walked over to the gun on the ground, bending over to pick it up before tucking it into his belt.

Rikku feet also stay glued to her own spot. Her hands had shot up to her mouth in shock when the stray bullet discharged. As scary as that was however, the silence that ensued was much worse. Her cousin was the strongest person she knew, always acting as an unshakable emotional pillar during their adventures, remaining composed and collected through the worst of situations. Seeing her so shaken and bent out of shape consequently frightened Rikku more than thunder and lightning ever could.

Tidus seemed unfazed though. Gun tucked away safely in his belt, he again attempted to make his way towards Yuna, who still hasn't moved a muscle. When he was close enough he took the hand that once held the gun into both of his. It felt cold and clammy against his warm palms. He gave it a gentle squeeze, seeking a reaction, however small, out of her.

For a moment Yuna didn't appear to have even registered the simple gesture.

It wasn't long however, before she started trembling. Tidus wanted to detach one of his hands from hers and lift Yuna's chin so he could peer into those beautiful eyes of hers. But as soon as he made a move to do so, her hand tensed up amidst the uncontrollable shaking as if begging for his back. Tidus obliged, and they stood there for what seemed like hours.

Yuna could feel Tidus's eyes focused on the side of her head. It felt just as intense as the sun's rays. She tried to stop the trembling, to will her body into steadying itself. _Get a hold of yourself, _she scolded herself, _then you can face him_. But the way his hands clasped around hers, it felt warm and soothing. All she wanted to do was to turn to face him and jump into his embrace and...

_Don't cry you dummy_, she chided herself, _you don't even know what you want to cry about_.

It suddenly dawned on Tidus that Yuna probably hadn't slept a wink ever since she woke up naked in their futon. Even from this angle he could see the tiredness etched across her otherwise perfectly beautiful face.

"Yuna," he finally broke the silence, "you look really tired." He hoped the obvious remark might be a good enough conversation starter to get Yuna talking.

The concern in his voice however, didn't help Yuna in digging up her composure. She couldn't even fathom how her muscles had found the energy to keep disobeying her brain's commands to relax.

"Mmm, hey! That potion of yours worked wonders! My shoulder feels like it's as good as new!" He tried again, this time with a bit more peppiness in his tone, "you know, if you keep this up you are gonna make those other healers jobless! Can you imagine Rin's advertising if he gets his greedy hands on that stuff? 'Magical potion made by Lady Yuna! It beats an entire team of white mages from Luca!'"

Maybe it was his lame joke, maybe it was her muscles finally burning out the last of her energy, but Yuna finally regained her poise. And his joke was definitely enough of a motive to elicit a smile on her part, though it was still largely disingenuous. The next thing she knew, Tidus lightly wrapped an arm around her shoulders and planted a soft kiss on the top of her head. She could tell that he wanted to talk to her about the crushing weight on her mind, but she didn't have enough energy for that. This wasn't like Macalania, when they were both still wired on adrenaline leftover from fighting Seymour and their flight from Bevelle. No, she was much too drained. His should was so close to her heavy head, so she leaned in and unwillingly shut her eyes. _Please don't say anything, this is just fine for now, we can talk later..._

* * *

"What are we waiting here for then? If we go to Luca right now we can capture that bitch in the red shirt." Paine said when Baralai had finished explaining what happened that morning.

"I wish it was that simple Paine. She and her men disappeared among the crowd after she finished her speech. With so many guards dead, it was impossible to keep the place locked down. People just panicked and rushed out."

"Even now she's got New Yevon and the Youth League running around looking for moles within our ranks. Our attention is just spread way to thin to mount any sort of operation against her and her so-called Children of Sin. I'm ashamed to say that they caught us with our pants down." Despite his internal exasperation, Baralai still maintained his cool monotone voice. It bothered Paine.

"So you are just going to sit here and do NOTHING?" She was losing her cool, ironically because she registered no emotion in the person she was getting at whom she was starting to get animated.

"Paine please, to do anything at this point would be foolish, we have no intelligence on the enemy. Besides, we are interrogating the man in the lift as we..."

"Tch, that's a hell of an excuse, if you are going to sit on your hands here in Bevelle then I'm going to Luca." At this point, Paine had completely forgotten about the reason why she came to the Bevelle palace. She walked out of the Praetor's office as one of his men who had waited patiently outside the locked door saluted Baralai before being allowed in.

"Sergeant, I apologize for making you wait outside."

Paine realized too late that the man who just walked in was the same one she had kicked out of the lift as the door closed.

"Not a problem sir, I have more news from Luca." He explained as the door to Baralai's office was shut again, this time leaving the Praetor and the traitor inside and Paine out. She tried to turn the door handle, no use – it was locked.

Then came the sounds of a struggle – a loud bang followed by the crackling of the Praetor's desk breaking, and finally a gunshot. Seconds later the lock on the door clicked and the door handle turned.

_That better be Baralai coming out,_ Paine thought as she braced herself against the wall near the door. She left the commandeered gun on Baralai's desk, and now was left with no weapons with which to defend herself. If worst comes to worst, she hoped at least that she could get the jump on the traitorous sergeant and disable him.

Whoever was grasping the handle on the other side of the door hesitated, however. Paine could see that the handle slowly being released. Before she could make up her mind whether she was going to burst in the door the lift dinged and its doors opened soon after. The Praetor's personal guard, clad in bullet-proof armor and helmets and brandishing state of the art rifles equipped with lasers, rushed out in organized formation. Twelve men, six squatting in the front row and six standing in the back row, trained their laser sights on Paine before she could even throw her hands up to indicate her harmlessness.

"Back away from the door." The leader among the bunch commanded. Paine really didn't have a choice.

"Coast is clear sir, Madame Paine is standing outside but that's all." He whispered into a commsphere attached to his vest.

_Madame? Is that what Baralai has his men calling me now?_

The door opened and a troubled Baralai walked out, pulling an injured prisoner in toll. He was shot through the knee with the gun Paine had left on Baralai's desk. "I have to thank you Paine, had it not been this gun, I would be lying dead on the floor."

She responded back with a smirk.

"This man had isn't an imposter. I think it is safe to assume he is the one who obtained the disguise for our fake Captain in the dungeons." He informed the leader of his personal squad, "Please see to it that we get as much information as possible out of him and the other prisoner."

"You still intent on doing nothing?" Paine asked, "They are every bit as bold as they seem, to attempt on the Praetor's life an all. Waiting to see what they might do next isn't a good idea."

"The enemy may be bold, but they are also quite calculated. That man has been working in the Palace for the past year despite his claim to have transferred here recently. He's trying to hide the fact that he has been here long enough to compromise a few things, and I don't like it."

"But you are wrong, I still intend on waiting, at least until I get a better idea of their plans." Baralai turned to Paine, wearing an uncharacteristic crooked grin, "And you are going to find them out for me."

Paine was taken aback by the grin more than the order to gather information, "Pardon me? Last time I checked you don't get to order me around like one of your lackeys."

"But as you have just witnessed, I'm not sure which of my 'lackeys' I can trust at the moment. I can trust you Paine. This must be a more interesting job than those delivery runs Rin has you doing. Plus New Yevon can be quite generous when it comes to compensation for outsourced assignments."

He was right, of course. "Fine" she muttered under her breath "I'll get you your intel." Not wanting to stay longer because, admittedly, she was starting to become intrigued in this new mission, Paine called for the lift. The door opened immediately and she stepped inside and pressed the button for the ground floor, all too eager to get out of the stuffy temple atmosphere.

"I would start with their finances." Baralai cried out after her, "A group like this needs a lot of gil to maintain itself, no matter how idealistic they are."

"Yes, _sir_." Paine even saluted, though she did so with a smirk on her lips.

Baralai did point her in a sensible direction though. Despite the economic boom Spira's experiencing, only a select few came to mind when it came to being capable of backing the Children of Sin. Rin was out of the question, since she knew most of his business deals – nothing jumped out as suspicious. Shinra was unlikely also, since the former Gullwing was not one for the use of violence.

_It could be the Youth League, I wouldn't put it past Nooj to come up with something as sick as this to oust New Yevon, however unlikely that it. Machine faction? Maybe, if Gippal was out of his mind. It could be one of the mercantile magnates like O'Aka, but then again what would they have to gain by starting something like this? People would just become weary of spending money if they think the calm is going to end._

Paine had decided that she should get a hold of some kind of money trail before she speculates any further. She should probably meet with Nooj too, just to alleviate her suspicions if nothing else.

It was already night, and the lights of Bevelle lit up the city. The electric lamps that lined the streets seemed to converge on the temple with a massive column of light that illuminated the palace from below. It was kind of eerie really, with the source of light being beneath the building, shadows were cast where they wouldn't exist under the sun, giving the structure a very unnatural feel. It was just one more reason for Paine to detest the place.

Once again speeding down the roads of Bevelle like a maniac, Paine soon left the city behind and made her way to Mushroom Rock.

* * *

Tidus awoke with a start. The background humming of the Ascension's engines reminded him that he was sleeping in one of its cabins. Cid had taken them in soon after he and Rikku carried a sleeping Yuna back to their humble lodgings on hidden recesses of the Mi'ihen Highroad. It was the safest option for them really – a fast moving airship would prove a difficult target to attack for any would be assassins.

The group onboard the ship, namely Tidus, Rikku, and Cid along with Lulu and Wakka who were evacuated along with Tidus and Yuna, had began to suspect that the sinking of the S.S. Liki was itself an attempt on Yuna's life, though the different method of attack still placed a little doubt onto the theory. In the end, before everyone retired, they had decided that the two incidents had to be connected somehow.

Yuna didn't take part in the discussion because she had slept in an isolated cabin reserved for sick passengers. Although there have been plenty of times she had slept sitting up, this was the first time she's fallen asleep while standing. Exhaustion – both mental and physical – had taken control of her body. Compound that with the anti-magic pulse that had done a number on her body the previous night made everyone worried enough to warrant having the onboard nurses monitor her for the night.

Tidus sat up and rubbed his legs, trying to wake them up enough so he could go for a walk around the enormous interior of the ship. The thing was at least twice the size of the Fahrenheit and the Celsius judging from the outside, and Tidus hadn't seen even a quarter of the luxurious inners of the cruise liner.

It was still the wee hours of the morning, and most people on the ship were still fast asleep. Since she had disembarked all of her paying customers before coming to Luca when Cid learned of what was going on, there was no need for an around-the-clock crew. The only people who were probably awake save for Tidus were the night-shift engineers and pilots.

So Tidus was surprised to find Lulu outside his door when he opened it.

"Oh, what luck, you are still up. I was going to talk to you."

"You mean you came here to wake me up? What's so important?" Tidus asked curiously.

"I just thought about what happened in Luca. Was what Rikku told me true? That woman walked into our room in the middle of the night and pretended to shoot my family?" _Right to the point, I see_, thought Tidus.

"I wasn't conscious when Yuna had that conversation with that woman, Rikku wasn't there either, Yuna just told her afterwards. I think she also said her name was Nevelyn." Tidus explained, scratching the back of his hand, "But yeah, pretty scary huh?"

"I'm not as scared for myself as I am for Yuna." Lulu said calmly.

"Mmm, what do you mean?"

"Nevelyn, her goal was obviously not to harm my family. It was to break Yuna, and I'm afraid that she might have succeeded. You know Yuna well enough to realize how hard she's taking this." Lulu answered.

"Yeah...when I saw her afterwards, well...It was like back when we escaped from Bevelle – except worse this time. Yuna, she didn't even say a single word."

Lulu stood there for what seemed an eternity, silently processing what Tidus just told her. He simply fixed his gaze on her absent mindedly, until she had seemingly made up her mind about something. She walked back towards her cabin but paused for a moment when she was flush with him.

Her hand went to his closest arm reassuringly gripped his bicep. Softly she said "Don't give up on her. I know it may look like this Nevelyn woman had won before the fight has even began, but we are still very much in this. Yuna's going to need your support, and I know you will do your best."

When Lulu turned at the end of the corridor towards her shared cabin with Wakka and Vidina, Tidus couldn't help but smile a little. Lulu doesn't often place her faith in others, let alone in Tidus, who she teasingly dismissed as clueless and childish on more than one occasion.

But right then he was hungry. In his hurry to find Yuna, he had left behind a much needed meal – and there was a five star restaurant onboard the ship.

A/N:


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: There's a long sex scene. ~3.5k words in fact. If you don't like reading lemons, then skip ahead to chapter 11 which will be up...eventually. But you will miss a lot of context, I have been working my way up to this scene for much of the story so far.

Chapter 10

Paine's hovercraft came to a skidding stop. She had wanted to make it to the Youth League headquarters just so that she wouldn't have to camp out in the wilderness. However it turned out that constantly pushing the hovercraft's speed dial past the highest number puts quite a bit of stress on the engine. That was why Paine had to spend much of her night patching up her vehicle, before setting out again, this time to find a suitable site to camp for the night.

She cursed under her breath at the fact that she could have spent the night in the Praetor's lavishly decorated bedroom. No matter how stuffy she thought the atmosphere was, she was not obstinate enough to think that the cold and damp tent she's now huddled up in was anywhere near the comfort level of her initially planned accommodation.

She gradually became painfully aware that the ground near Mushroom Rock was, well, rocky. Pebbles hidden under the tarp she had laid to insulate herself from the earth was pressed into her back by her own weight. On top of that not so little discomfort, the air inside the tent became stale, forcing Paine to choose between fresh air or the enclosed warm capsule that kept her warm amidst the chilly background.

For the better part of two hours, she tossed about trying to relieve herself of the jagged bed and tried to calm her breathing so that the air may yet remain sufferable.

Then came the shaking.

Paine's first instinct was that she had become delirious from the lack of sleep and the stifling air. But another moment of contemplation later and she realized that something big was coming her way. Reaching for her night-vision goggles, she snuck out of the tent as quietly as she could and crept across the site. She had situated herself against steep drop offs on three sides so that any attacking fiends wouldn't be able to flank her. Now her choice of camp grounds served for a handy high ground perch. From there she could have seen for miles in almost every direction.

Sure enough, the shaking came from something big. Very big. Tank-like machina supported on tracks the width of her body wheeled across the rocky terrain below her. The movement of their monstrous bulk masked the light footsteps of soldiers clad in body armour from head to toe. Even through the distorted colouration of the night-vision goggles, Paine could tell that these guys weren't Youth League.

Then the march came to a halt, their formation broke, and the tank engines sputtered to a stop. It was Paine's lucky day, the Children of Sin's ground army had just made camp for the night - literally right underneath her feet.

Nevelyn pinched the bridge of her nose, begging in her mind for the developing migraine to go away.

"You seem to have a lot of confidence in those foot soldiers of yours." A voice from her commsphere stated plainly.

"Don't you worry your pretty little face into a frown," she said, not hiding the irony in her response - since the man on the other end had always insisted in audio-only links. "We've used largely mercenaries up until now. They are expandable and cheap, but untrained and weak-willed."

"This is a golden opportunity, New Yevon won't sit on its ass for too long, and Nooj will bring back his best men from Luca soon - don't waste it." That came off more like a warning, much to Nevelyn's disliking.

"You are my partner, not my superior, there's no need to act all high and mighty when we are just having a friendly chat. Now I think we should end the night here, we don't want to do something we'd both regret tomorrow morning." Her feminine charm may have lost a little of its edge due to the lack of an image on the other side, but Nevelyn's purring still carried the usual air of her exotic beauty.

Too bad the effect on her partner seemed to be almost none-existent. He didn't make a single retort to her innuendo before cutting the link.

Nonetheless she allowed herself a moment to enjoy the inner pride built up inside. She had raised an army of trained soldiers among the ranks of orphaned teenagers. Natural selection had worked wonders when it came to the orphans' mental toughness. Those who survived the cold winters and the abusive pedestrians were some of the toughest people around. Their survival instincts were also polished to an impeccable shine, so all it took was showing them that banding together meant they could better their odds.

The first few weeks after Nevelyn had gathered a band of street kids were all about scrounging for food. They eventually worked out a system whereby they would distract bystanders by getting into petty fights right in the middle of the streets. A crumb of bread would sometimes be placed in the middle to further sell the drama. When a crowd of onlookers would gather, the others of her group would pilfer whatever gil they could, weaving in and out of the gathering nimbly. It helped that they all had dextrous fingers and experience in stealing for food.

As their bellies grew fuller, their numbers grew larger. Soon rumours began to flow among them that a great underground transportation system, built before the days of Sin and left undiscovered for a thousand years, remained largely intact and could offer the ragtag bunch a suitable shelter.

Little did they know that the underground facilities would later become the nodes and veins of the Children of Sin. With Nevelyn as their leader and considerable financial backing, the Children of Sin had become a formidable yet secretive fighting force.

To prove it, they were going to grind the Youth League into the dust under their boots.

Tidus was relieved that find a full buffet waiting for him at Barkeep's restaurant. Unlike Rikku's soup from earlier, the food was kept warm by some diverted heat from the Ascension's engines. Back on Besaid, he had often had to go downstairs into the kitchen during the night in hopes of finding some leftovers. He had an athlete's metabolism after all. Leftovers however, was nothing compared to the food right in front of him at the moment.

Piling as much food as he could onto two plates, Tidus held one in each hand and found a booth in the restaurant to his liking. It was situated by a large pane of glass that offered an unobstructed view of the night sky outside. He gave into a brief moment of sentimentality and thought about how such a peaceful night sky could mask such turmoil underneath. Then he dug into his food, wolfing down mouthfuls at a time, savouring in the deliciousness of hypello cooking.

The doors of the restaurant clicked open and Tidus peeled an eye away from the plate of food set on the table to see an awakened Yuna walking towards him. Tidus frowned a little, _for someone who collapsed from exhaustion standing up she sure didn't sleep a lot_. His frown soon disappeared however, when he saw what she was wearing.

In place of the dirty clothes she had slept in she had on a white blouse, the buttons of which ran down the middle. Only the buttons in her chest area had been done, giving her a v-shaped neckline and opening up again below her sternum, revealing her toned midriff. The likely borrowed blouse fit her fine almost everywhere, except for her bust. The article of clothing hugged tightly at her torso, probably half a size too small. The constriction had pushed her breasts up and together considerably, making them look like they were about to burst out at any moment.

The opening of the blouse below her belly met a pair of loose fitting plaid shorts that barely reached below the hip.

Yuna was, by no means, a tall woman, but her legs were an eyeful all by themselves from where Tidus sat. Their proportions made it seem as if they ran for miles. They were also smooth and sleek and every movement was just simply...majestic.

Altogether she was a sight to behold. Her skin glistened just a bit under the dim lighting of the restaurant, her hair clang to themselves and her neck. She had obviously just taken a shower. Her scent, carried in by a draft through the door behind her, reminded him of the rain forests of Besaid.

Tidus swallowed the gulp of food left in his mouth. His throat immediately protested for the lack of chewing, but he didn't really pay it any attention. Four years of living together and he still saw Yuna as undoubtedly the sexiest woman in the world. By far.

Still he fought off his male urges. Yuna shouldn't be out of bed yet.

He got up from his booth and closed the distance between him and her at a calm pace.

"Hey what are you doing out of bed, missy?" He questioned, teasingly adopting the tone of a father chastising his energetic child.

"I wanted to see you." She plainly responded, not as playfully as Tidus had hoped. "I thought you might be at the restaurant. You weren't in your bed."

"Oh yeah, ha-ha," Tidus rubbed the back of his head, "I got hungry. But I'm full now." He actually wasn't.

Yuna looked at him, tilting her head to her side a little as if she sensed the lie. She straightened again soon after, deciding that she didn't really care at the moment. "Can we go back to your room then?" She asked in the same plain tone.

And so the couple did exactly that. Tidus had assumed that Yuna just wanted to sleep beside him, that she wasn't used to the idea of sleeping alone anymore than he was.

He was quite wrong.

As soon as the door to the room closed and locked, Yuna spun him around and eagerly captured his lips in hers. Her palms painfully sandwiched his cheeks. Doing away with their usual courtesy, she more or less forced his lips apart and lashed furious with her tongue. Her suddenness, more than her shifting weight, made Tidus takes a tentative step back.

Yuna didn't relent. In fact she pressed in further, completely ignoring Tidus's shocked expression and wide open eyes. All she wanted was for him to return her passionate assault on his mouth. She wouldn't stop until he did so.

_Whatever you do, just don't pull away from this_. She begged silently.

Tidus had thought that he had Yuna's kissing figure out. After all they had kissed when she was happy, sad, excited, nervous, and even angry – his personal favourite. In a way, he would say that Yuna wore her heart not at her sleeves, but at her lips. Yet he struggled to decipher her emotions at the moment. There wasn't the playful dancing of the tongue of happiness, but her eagerness hinted at that emotion and excitement. The kiss felt bitter, yet there was no reluctance and apprehensiveness that came packaged along with sadness and nervousness. He could feel something akin to anger, what with the ferocity of it all, but her distinctive defiance wasn't present.

Then the initial shock wore off, and he began to sense how painfully she had wanted some sort of reciprocation. Although he was confused and taken aback by her strange onset of passion, he just couldn't bring himself to back away again. Slowly he began to part his lips voluntarily to massage hers. His tongue met hers teasingly but skillfully avoided her attempts for more contact. His hands settled themselves on her hips, pulling them in ever so lightly to accept them into his. Every motion he made was an effort to calm Yuna's intensity, to get to the underlying emotions.

Every motion he made failed however, to bring Yuna's pacing down. She made no move to follow his lead and stubbornly continued her belligerence. Feeling that Tidus was now steady enough, she closed what little distance between them that was left and pressed firmly into him. The sensation of her breasts compressing between their bodies fuelled her inner desires and she all but lost herself in the haze that ensued.

The two bodies fumbled onto the soft mattress and Tidus became pinned against the bed and Yuna. Despite the fall and Tidus's intentions when he started to return the kiss, their lips not only stayed glued to each other, but moved at a pace even faster than before.

Yuna was more than agreeable with the pacing, and soon she started whimpering and moaning into his mouth. For a long time they continued, and though her actions indicated otherwise, Yuna's mind was oddly blissfully at peace. That is, until Tidus opened his stupid mouth and asked if she was alright.

She snapped back to reality. Supporting her upper body with hands on the sides of Tidus's head and arching her back to part the distance between their faces, she stared blankly into his eyes. She felt hurt at the fact that he would stop to ask her such a thing. Sure, deep down Yuna didn't feel alright, but that was why she had wanted his company after she woke up. She had ignored the protests put up by the nurses in the room and sought him out in the middle of the night for his love, not his sympathy.

"Yuna? What's wrong? Look, I right here for you, you can..."Tidus sounded worried, too worried for Yuna to handle. So she shut him up mid-sentence with another kiss, using all her might to resist his hands on her shoulders pushing her lips away.

She wasn't going to have any of Tidus's reluctance. No, Yuna was settled on bending him to her will – and she had the best tool in the shed, a body she knows he won't be able to resist. Her hands reached for the few buttons that kept her blouse together and undid them. True to Tidus's assessment, her breasts, free of the constriction, released themselves into his chest.

His resistance instantly melted away. Finally giving in to temptation, he returned Yuna's kisses fervently. He frequently took control during their love making, aside from the odd occasion during which Yuna made it quite clear she was in charge beforehand. He thought wrongly that this time it wasn't going to be one of those exceptions.

As soon as he rolled to flip Yuna on her back she shoved him away with a push to his chest. Then using the combined effort of her arms and legs, she forced Tidus onto his butt. He couldn't stop his motion in time before his back dug painfully into the foot of the bed. Recovering from the sting, he smiled inwardly at the fact that Yuna's struggle for control. If she wants a fight, then she was going to get it.

Springing himself from his position at the foot of the mattress, he dove towards Yuna's body wishing for nothing but to pin her full bust under his chest. Instead she rolled away and flipped him on his back before he could have settled in. Her next move was to pin his wrists onto the soft linen while straddling his hip, gripping his torso with her deceptively strong legs. His excitement was made quite clear to Yuna, who felt a tent building itself in his shorts under the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh.

_Good_, she thought,_ he wants me_.

In one split second her muscles softened and the dull blanket lifted from her eyes. They caught glimmers of starlight that snuck in through the crystal clear windows Tidus had previously all but ignored.

Now he was thankful for their menial existence. Yuna's eyes became life-like once again, and he felt that he could look into them forever. Her bottom lip curled into her mouth under her teeth, and he could see her biting down on the pink, swollen flesh. The look she had was thoughtful and seductive at the same time.

Her motions too went from that of a feisty vixen to that of a gingerly lover. She tenderly lifted his wrists, and guided his hands into the opening of her blouse - from her hourglass waist up to the sides of her ribs. He savoured in the silky, creamy, and smooth feel of her skin underneath his fingertips, and she relished in the pulses of electricity his touches sent up her spine. She tried her hardest not to let out a moan, biting down on her lip as hard as she dared. Yet the damnedest little sound escaped her throat.

It encouraged Tidus in all the wrong ways. He couldn't help but to try and bring his hands together, to cup her breasts in his palms and have his way with the numerous nerve endings they held within.

Yuna was dealing with an all too reluctant Tidus just five minutes ago, but now she had to contend with an overly eager one. She wasn't about to just give in and let him do her away with his skilful machinations. So she summoned her fierceness back. She grabbed both of his wrists once again and shoved them down to the bed, forcing him to lie there spread eagle. She pecked at his lips, only to bring them away, just out of his reach, when he raised his head to deepen the kiss. The smile she wore faintly brushed against his mouth, all but making his excitement that much more...exciting for Yuna.

It was there, with his arms pinned behind him and to the side, with his face millimetres from Yuna's, with his bulging erection just a few cursed layers from his ultimate goal, that Tidus let out a wild and unruly hiss from between his teeth. Sucking as much oxygen as his lungs could hold, he crunched with his core muscles and biceps as explosively as he could. His wrists escaped Yuna's grip and his hands found themselves on her shoulder blades. His chest found themselves once again pressed against her firm breasts and his lips furious melted into hers.

With one swift motion of his hands her unbuttoned blouse flew off her body and onto the floor. She returned the favour in turn by ripping his night shirt to expose much of his athletic body. The sound of fabric tearing only served as an auditory aphrodisiac at this point.

Knowing that trying to hold her man down wasn't going to work anymore, Yuna decided to approach her need for control at another angle. She broke their constant kissing and took the initiative by placing the inside of her elbows the crook of his neck and pulling him into her and herself up while straightening her back. The motion exposed her breasts for Tidus's impatient libido, kind of like throwing a hungry dog a bone, in hopes of sating just enough of his hunger so he would submit to her will – but not for too long, she wanted to play more.

The sensation of him sucking, licking, and biting on those supple bundles of nerves was just an added bonus for her.

But Yuna soon got more than she had bargained for when Tidus freed one of his hands from its position on her back and cupped one of her breasts while his mouth still held the other. With it he traced feathery kisses around the nipple, yet throwing in an occasional bite of the skin just to mix things up. Next he traced spiralling circles on her areole with his tongue, applying as much pressure as he could from the tip before sucking the entire organ while pulling his head away ever so slightly. The suction he had created dragged the swollen breast along for the ride, and just when he felt he was beginning to lose it, his sucking descended into a bite of her nipple. His hand simultaneously pinched the other nipple between its thumb and index.

Between his mouth, tongue, and hand all but worshiping her, Yuna let out a heart-felt, pleasure-filled chortle. It felt so good, so freeing, to just laugh again. The immense amounts of stress weighing down on her lifted as if they were strapped to ignited rockets. Her neck strained itself arching backwards, but she couldn't help but to straightened her windpipe and give the moans and borderline screams a clear path from her lungs to the outside air.

When the bite and pinch suddenly came, it was as if someone turned on every light-sensitive nerve in her retina. A blinding light engulfed her vision and the moans and borderline screams turned into a high-pitched cry that instantly drained all the air she held.

After recovering somewhat, Yuna idly wondered if the walls of these cabins were thick enough to mask her shrieks. Then she realized that again, she didn't really care. The door was locked anyways, and she was more than willing to give any eavesdropping ears on the other side a good show given the incentives.

What she did care about was the fact that Tidus was starting to gain control over her. She briefly toyed with idea to just give in and let him take the lead, but decided that she _had_ to dictate things – it would be much more satisfying for her that way.

Tonight was about what Yuna wants.

This time, instead of using strength to get what she wants, she merely placed an extended index finger on his chest. She urged him back down onto the bed more with her searing eye contact than her pressing digit. He could do nothing but to comply.

She threw away the remnants of his tattered shirt and took in the sight of his bare chest and abs, which are dotted with tiny beads of sweat that shimmered under the starlight. If she had only taken a moment to calm down, she would have noticed that her underwear was, at this point, uncomfortably soaked through and through.

Trailing light kisses from his jaw line down to his neck, she unexpectedly bit his pectoral muscles, cursing a little in amusement that men didn't have the same amount of nerve endings there as women. Then again it could be just her. Still he groaned deeply at the gesture, probably just as amused as her.

Down she went, slowly towards his diaphragm, then his abs, and finally the hem of his shorts.

Yuna suddenly shifted gears and forcefully pulled his shorts off, along with his boxers. The layers went off so fast that Tidus was naked before he even realized it.

She smiled mischievously – little Tidus was all grown up and out in the open now.

She started with the tip, stroking it with her tongue and kissing it with her lips. The stroking then descended further down, all the way to the base, and slowly back up again. She felt him quiver just a little at the sensation and mental smiled. Soon she was going to have him wrapped around her little finger. She could literally taste his excitement, and aggressively pressed on.

Working with a hand and her mouth, she stroked his length furiously. His back arched with the growing pool of heat in his stomach, and she saw his eyes forced shut in an effort to establish some self-control. He had no chance however.

Yuna took him in his entirety. With his member buried in his mouth and her tongue madly massaging at its every inch, he lost himself and released his seed into the back of her throat. Her hands went up to his chest and she dug her nails into his flesh. As she swallowed the warm liquid, she dragged her claws down his side, painfully etching a trail of reddened skin. On her way back up, Yuna made sure to let him feel some of her teeth too. The climax, the pain of her scratching, and the friction of teeth on his still hard penis was enough to reduce him into a shaking, sweating, heaving mess of a man.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily for him, she wasn't done yet.

She only had to give him some time to regain his hardness. Time which she would take advantage of and use him. Not even bothering to slow down, she flung her own underwear off along with those bothersome plaid shorts. The panties flew across the room and latched themselves onto the door handle.

Yuna moved to straddle him again, this time close to the neck. She was so close, in fact, that Tidus could see the clear liquid of her libido dipping down her pink folds. He did as she silently asked, crushing his lips onto the apex of her thighs.

Immediately the moans and high-pitched screeches begin, only cut short with her struggling for breath and shouting his name. His tongue darted in and out of her warmth, mixing his saliva with her incredible wetness. God only knows how many times more nerve endings were placed onto his mouth compared to her breasts.

The darting soon turned into lightning quick flicks upon her clit. Soon her walls clenched themselves together with the onset of an orgasm. It was far too much for her, the sounds of pleasure ceased and the shortness of breath grew until she could no longer breathe. Her hands were spasming uncontrollably, trying to hold onto something but always stopping in midair when the signals from her brain to her appendages would be drowned under her immense gratification.

Tidus stopped for a moment, sensing that his lover needed to regain herself lest she forgets to breathe complete.

"I...I want," Yuna spoke for the first time since entering the room, though she couldn't annunciate more than two breathless words at a time. "...you in me. Finger, tongue, penis, I don't care."

His lips parted in the widest smile she had ever seen.

"Does this mean I win?" He asked tauntingly. He wanted Yuna to beg for it, knowing that any delay would be unbearable for her.

Frustrated at his childish stupidity and competitiveness and clouded by pure lust, Yuna let out an annoyed grunt before moving to straddle his hips again. She may have given him a choice before, but now she was going to make him please her the best way possible. When her thighs were back in position, she clamped down on his torso as tight as a python would its hapless prey. All the while she began to grind at his crouch ever so slightly, bring on a strange combination of pain and pleasure. There was no way she was going to beg for anything tonight.

Tidus was almost forced to cave, what with the death grip she had on his waist and her angry stare. Besides he was ready again – he wanted to enter her just as much as she wanted him inside herself.

However lubricated she was he still found it hard to slide into her body. The muscles lining her walls have yet to relax after her first orgasm and protested against being forced apart. The resulting increase in friction only added to Yuna's delight, so much so that her arms once again lost purpose. She barely managed to bring one of her hands to her forehand and run it through her hair to relieve herself of the heat building inside.

She again emptied all the air in her lungs when all of his length buried itself inside her. He filled her so completely that she had to bring up her other hand to her face, tracing it down her neck, then her chest, then her abdomen, in an attempt to cool herself from the excruciating heat coursing through her body. She felt as if she was going to burst into flames.

Tidus sat up straight and their lips fused together once again. Lying there and watching Yuna touch herself didn't agree with him.

The jostling shifted his member inside her walls, and she shuddered into the kiss, pouring as much heated passion into him as possible. Then Tidus started pumping in and out of her body. The motion was a bit awkward with him sitting up, so he leaned back and propped himself on his arms. She followed his lead and tilted herself forwards, not willing to break the kiss.

Lifting and lowering her hips with the coordination of her leg muscles, Yuna rose and fell to the beat of Tidus's motions. Her hands detached from herself and were replaced by his, and every trail he traced tingled with goose bumps. He found heightened response to his touch so undeniably attractive that he involuntarily let out a deep grunt, followed by another when Yuna began grinding against his lap.

She was so close again that he felt it. He picked up the pace, only to slow down again moments later, knowing that the longer the buildup, the better the climax. Every time he slowed, Yuna objected with a heated kiss, trying to get him to stop teasing her, to give that one extra, forceful push that would bring on her ecstasy. Each time he would accept that kiss with one of his own, but only just a kiss. He enjoyed toying with her way too much.

When Yuna finally went off the edge, Tidus again enclosed her mouth, refusing to let go so that he may capture all of the released sexual energy. She moaned and cried beautifully, and tried her hardest to pull away for air. But he had set a firm hand on the back of her head. All she could do was to ride out the wave of pleasure, eyes wide and lungs burning as he pumped furious again and again, taking advantage of the heightened sensitivity and tightened walls, not that she wasn't a tight fit to begin with, to prolong her orgasm.

She soon found her release in another way, much to his chagrin.

Yuna again sank her nails into the skin on his chest and on his back – pretty much anywhere her hands could read easily. She clawed at him much deeper this time, going as far as drawing blood. He winced in the pain but didn't skip a beat with his hips.

His flanks were also sore at this point from the constant constrictions from Yuna's thighs. It was a self-harming cycle for him in reality, the harder he pumped, the harder Yuna would squeeze and claw, and for some reason the pain would make him gyrate even harder.

Yuna would climax again and again, for how long she couldn't possibly remember. Tidus was pleased with himself, but his erection was becoming increasingly painful. It had been like that for so long – since it always took him a while to reload and fire again so to speak. Nonetheless he felt he was finally close. And on her final orgasm he did so too, just in time too, because afterwards Yuna went limp and barely managed to roll off his body. Her legs were twitching, her chest heaving, her skin bearing a crimson red hue. She was panting as if all the air in this giant of an airship wasn't enough. Her breasts rose and fell, flattened into two even, perfectly shaped domes by gravity.

Tidus himself was not in much better shape, but the fact that he was so proud of pleasing Yuna, to the point of reducing her into the mess lying beside him, released untold amounts of endorphins into his bloodstream. In short, he was giddy from doing her brains out.

He turned his head to peek at her glazed over, mismatched eyes, and wondered if he could love this gorgeous woman anymore than he already did. His memory inexplicably reminded him of what Lulu had said to him just hours ago, and he could help but to smile to himself – he certainly had done his _best_ in supporting Yuna.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The thunderous march of men and machina closed in on the Youth League's enclosure. The dust kicked up in their wake clouded the light of the rising sun towards the east. The Children of Sin numbered in the hundreds, and equipped with long range artillery, tanks, and agile humanoid robotic fighters. As they closed in on their goal, the artillery units fell back and dug in their supports. Foot soldiers made spaces in their ranks, and tanks sped to the front, guns at the ready. The humanoid machina leapt onto the tanks, magnets on their feet glued to the metallic surfaces.

The Youth League had long been aware of their presence in the area. Paine had rushed ahead of the marching men during the night.

Not that her information did them any good. The Youth League numbers might have almost equalled that of the enemy's, but they lacked machina. Contact with Nooj had yet to be established, the men he took with him to Luca sorely needed at this point. Yaibal had acted well in the Mevyn's stead but Paine could see him buckling somewhat under the pressure.

"Someone please get me a comm link to Djose, if Mevyn Nooj is held back we need reinforcements from the Faction now, especially their machina." He yelled as he walked among men hastily trying to mount a respectable defence. The Youth League members criss-crossed the large enclosure while their superiors barked orders from passed down from their superiors.

"Your men have been fighting fiends and nothing else for too long, I won't lie about what I think of your chances here." Paine said solemnly, "They are..."

"I know, I know! But I can't very well bend over and submit now can I! We are the Youth League, one of Spira's strongest organizations! We have to at least put up a good fight." Yaibal said, exhausted from not sleeping the night before, and exasperated from coordinating the organized chaos around him. "How did they even get this close, right beneath our noses, without so much as a whisper from the posted sentries?"

"I think you know how." She responded matter-of-factly.

Yaibal clenched his fists. Paine was right, he did know, but it stilled pained him to know that some of his closest friends would betray him so.

Off in the distance salvos of artillery fire warned him and his men that the inevitable attack was upon them. The enemy had chosen to strike from the east with the sun at their backs. Even though the morning sun was weak, its light was still intense enough to hide the smoke trails of the incoming shells. The only warning several unlucky squads of men had of their impending deaths was the growing hissing of artillery cutting through the air. Paine and Yaibal were fortunate enough to have avoided any flying shrapnel, having stood in the open when the explosions hit.

"Men! Spread yourselves thin and look for overhead cover! Where is that comm link to Djose?" Yaibal demanded. His voice, loud as it may be, was barely audible through the screams of pain. Their defences were hit hard – aside from the heavy casualties, three pill boxes made of reinforced concrete had been obliterated and the thick walls surrounding the Youth League headquarters had been reduced into nothing but rubble in multiple places. Soon these would become entry points for the enemy infantry storming their positions.

"You feel that, Yaibal? The ground, it's shaking." Said a concerned Paine as she and Yaibal followed his own advice and found cover inside a crater that was just dug out by one of the shells.

"I'm assuming the tanks you were talking about are coming." He stated while wincing as the next salvo exploded around them.

"Yeah, we have to move now. Even if we survive this artillery, once the tanks come with their infantry and the rest of their machina, we'll be sitting ducks surrounded by the enemy if we stay here."

"You have a point there, Paine, but I certainly can't just tuck my tail between my legs and…"

"Sir!" a huffing Youth League soldier interrupted as he dove into the fox hole, barely avoiding pieces of shrapnel flying through the air. Not even bothering to recover from the dive, the man extended an arm, a commsphere in hand. "We have the Mevyn on the line, but Djose is still unreachable."

"Mevyn!" Yaibal half saluted, half ducked as shells rocked the earth around them again. The hits were gradually becoming more frequent, less and less akin to rounds of salvos and more like a continuous bombardment.

"Yaibal, it is good to see you are still alive. How are our casualties?"

"Sir, I have only a vague idea. The first hit was bad, we lost somewhere around four squads. The soldiers have all taken cover before the shells hit again, so I would assume that the first fours squads account for most of our casualties."

Nooj hesitated, the desperation in his subordinate's voice told him there was much worse news.

"Look Nooj, we can't hold on for long here. Either you bring some extra troops and machina, or we get overran by their tanks." Paine cut in bluntly.

"That would be impossible, I'm afraid that the Children of Sin have out manoeuvred every last one of us." Answered a despondent Nooj, "one of the men I've brought with me turned out to be a traitor, he had some…fiends…strong fiends with him when I called a meeting.

"Most of us are alive, so far only two have died from their injuries, and the rest are severely injured and fighting for their lives. I myself had the luck of being late to the party, amputated leg and all…

"Look, we can discuss this later. For now focus on getting out of headquarters alive and with as many able bodies as possible. We will need every one of those men to fight back another day."

"Nooj…"

"Mevyn! We can still fight back now, to the last man if need be. If we retreat out of headquarters, the Youth League will be finished!" Yaibal loudly protested.

"Don't be stupid!" Cried out an angry Nooj, "You are at a fatal disadvantage! Make you way down the ravine and follow the path to the beaches where Operation Mi'ihen happened. There will be a means for evacuation waiting for you."

The artillery came to an abrupt stop and curious Youth League soldier brave enough to poke their heads out from under cover did so, half expecting to somehow wake up from this terrible nightmare.

But Paine knew better, the only reason for the shelling to stop was to avoid friendly fire. Soon there will be no way to escape.

"C'mon you damned fool, we have to get going. NOW!" She grabbed Yaibal's collar and dragged him towards an opening in the back. Orders for retreat were soon thrown about here and there, and the Youth League men filed themselves out of the same exit Yaibal and Paine took. It was as organized of a withdrawal as the battered troops could have done.

They were now walking on a small path that curved along a steep cliff behind the headquarters buildings. Seventy feet down below waves crashed against the hard rock, throwing about white foamy spray. On the other side, concrete walls met more rock formations, affording the beleaguered Youth League remnants some cover from the enemy.

The Children of Sin's foot soldiers must have seen the retreat during their advance because not two seconds after the last of the men filed out of the headquarters grounds did automatic gunfire rip through the air.

Then an explosive projectile fired from one of their tanks hit a section of concrete right in front of Paine. A large chunk of concrete flew into her face and the force of the impact blinded her with pain. She stumbled to her side and her foot barely stopped itself short of the drop off. One of her eyes was covered with blood from her new head wound, and her cranium felt it was going to split down the middle.

Yaibal, ears ringing from the shockwave, pulled her along with him further down the path, trying to move as fast as he can so that they don't slow down the men behind them. The section of the wall blasted off allowed for the invading infantry to take aim and cut down anybody who was too slow or just too unlucky.

When the line of men made it into the rock formations, Yaibal ordered for them to scatter and take cover among the rocks. There was only one path leading into their position – the one they just took. He had hoped the path would be too narrow for the tanks to travel through, and any ill-advised attempts by the enemy to give chase would be met by a wide arc of fire.

His plan would have worked, had the humanoid machina fighters detached themselves from the tanks and went into attack mode. They leapt from building to building and soon from rock to rock. Then, melee weapons unsheathed, they dropped down upon the unsuspecting Youth League men. In the chaos of blades and bullets, blood and machine parts, more of the withdrawing men lost their lives. When all of the machina were disabled and bullets stopped flying, a quick head count told Yaibal that he may have lost over a hundred of his defenders.

The rest rapidly beat a hasty retreat further into the rocks, even though the Children of Sin had long since halted their attack – having achieved a complete victory.

* * *

_Bee-bee-bee-beep_,_ bee-bee-bee-beep_,_ bee-bee-bee-beep_.

Tidus had forgotten that he set an alarm for himself so that he could wake up and check on Yuna in the morning. The infernal clock was beeping away, spitefully informing him that it was just about sunrise. Tidus couldn't have been asleep for more than four hours, and he felt like he slept even less.

Throwing an idle arm outwards towards the alarm clock's general direction, he managed to smack the large snooze button squarely in the middle. To his relief, the beeping ceased, though only momentarily. Now he just had to summon enough wakefulness to turn the clock off for good in the next ten minutes.

Tidus could hear the calm breathing of Yuna sleeping beside him. Her head began to shift a little, but stopped once it found itself resting against his shoulder. _She's really become a heavy sleeper_, Tidus said to himself, staring at her sleep form. One of her hands was tucked beneath her brunette hair, some of which splayed across his shoulder, and the other found its way to his chest during the night. She was lying on her side with the blanket they shared covering everything just below the shoulder. Her body was tucked tightly against, with a single leg draping itself across his hips and her torso contouring his side, seeking warmth in the frigid air.

In fact the air in the cabin was a little too frigid, almost as if Lulu caster her strongest blizzard spells over the entire room.

_Maybe Yuna was too loud last night_, Tidus joked inwardly. _It would be awkward to explain how Yuna managed to wake Lulu up from all the way across the ship_.

Then Tidus became keenly aware of noises travelling down the hallway and instantly became tense. His bulging should muscles shoved Yuna's head slightly, bringing about a tiny frown on her face. The memory of the attack at the hotel still fresh in his mind, Tidus didn't want to take any chances. Climbing out of the covers without waking Yuna, he found his boxers and shorts from the previous night right under his feet and slipped them on. His shirt was also on the ground among his and some of Yuna's clothing, but they were beyond repair.

He shivered because he was completely topless, put on his gloves, and hoped in his mind that Shinra's invention would work for a second time. Even though it had helped him scramble down hotel wall during the mercenary attack, he was still a little sceptical.

_Brotherhood_, he called to his signature sword with his mind. Just like before, its handle materialized in his hand, followed by the blade itself. Two nights ago he used his gloves for the first time, materializing the swords Shinra had stored away and jammed them into the building to aid in his descent.

_Damn twerp_, _maybe his tech is just as reliable as he says,_ he thought as he braced himself against the wall immediately next to the door. A wicked chill bit into his body as soon as he did so.

The noise grew louder and louder, soon it became two discernable voices – a high-pitched, bubbly, and somewhat angry voice, and a deep, annoyed one.

"Pops! You need to start hiring better engineers! If I hadn't been here, you would have had an engine failure! You should count your lucky stars that the only problem you have is a frozen ass."

"Ahh can it girl! I don' need you tellin' me what to do on my own ship. Just get the hot air back up. At this altitude we are all gonna freeze to death!"

Tidus felt his whole body breathe out in relief. It was just Rikku and Cid arguing, and it explained the coldness. He dismissed his blade, which away faded back to Shinra's secret storage site, and began his quest to find a suitable shirt – something to keep him warm while father and daughter work out their differences and get the heated air circulating again.

_Bee-bee-bee-beep_,_ bee-bee-bee-beep_,_ bee-bee-bee-beep_.

Tidus cursed under his breath for forgetting about his alarm again. He tried to leap over the bed to shut the thing up for good before Yuna woke up, but merely managed to land onto the bed, fingers just shy of touching the clock.

"Mmm…Tidus shut it off!" Yuna said as she twisted her body around and threw the covers over her ears in protest.

Tidus crawled up the bed and decided to just pull the power off the clock instead of trying to figure out how to work the damned thing.

"Come back to bed, it's so cold in here…" Yuna pleaded sleepily before snapping her eyes open, "_Why_ is it so cold?" She all but demanded.

"Rikku and Cid might have had an engine problem. The engine sounds like it's fixed, but apparently the heating system got screwed up." Tidus said as he lowered himself onto the bed, fitting himself snugly against Yuna's back side. It was still _really_ early, and he wanted to enjoy this morning alone with Yuna.

She smiled from ear to ear. Closing her eyes, she playfully wiggled herself within his embrace. Even though they had the sheet they slept in last night now set between their bodies, his warmth not only took away the edge of the frosty temperatures, but also made her feel delightfully exuberant on the inside.

She heard a tiny hiss from behind her ear.

"What's wrong?" She asked, turning her head back as far as she could without breaking away from his arms.

"It's nothing, just the fabric chafing against my chest." He replied nonchalantly.

Yuna, not satisfied with his answer, turned to face Tidus while putting an arm's length of distance in between.

"Did I…did I do that?" She questioned, referring to several trails of reddened claw marks running across his chest.

She ran a warm hand down one of the trails, it felt like the remains of a shallow cut running from his collar bone down to the bottom of his rib cage. Her brows furrowed at the sight, she really didn't pay the fact that she had so desperately clawed at him any attention, but now she couldn't help but o feel a pang of guilt.

"Ouch" he complained again, this time it was because her hand had unconsciously pressed itself into his bruised sides. "Yuna, you have really strong legs, you know that?"

Another pang of guilt pooled into the existing one.

"Just how much damage did I do last night?" She sheepishly asked. She hadn't meant to use so much strength or dig so deep with her nails, but she just felt so good, and _he_ wouldn't let her sound out her pleasure.

"Well, my sides feel a little bruised, and then there are the cuts you see, plus the cuts on my back. Oh and little Tidus is pretty sore too, so…" He started to joke, but stopped himself short of an innuendo-laced punch line when he saw the hurt in her eyes. "Hey…hey, Yuna, it's alright, seriously. I really enjoyed it, and I could tell you were _really_ into it too." He coaxed while tracing a hand through her dishevelled hair and letting the straightened strands fall back onto her face.

Yuna genuinely smiled a little at his attempt for reassurance. She reached a hand under her pillow and pulled out her engagement ring before flattening herself on her back, arms extended and eyes pointed towards the ceiling.

"Do you know why…," she began her question as she slid the ring into its place on her left hand. "Why I take off this ring just to put it on the first thing in the morning?"

Tidus honestly had no clue. He had initially dismissed it as one of her oddities, maybe, he had thought, she doesn't like sleeping with foreign objects on her body. Though the fact she had lost the ring during the attack on the S.S Liki would have more than annoyed him had he not recovered it in the wreckage.

He shook his at her rhetorical question. She continued.

"You'll think it's stupid, but this ring isn't just a simple ring to me, you know?"

"I certainly hope that it's more than a simple to you." Tidus retorted with a hint of irritation in his voice.

Yuna was caught off guard a little by the somewhat harsh comeback, but chuckled a little when she realized that he must have misinterpreted her earlier comment.

"Please don't sound so hurt, I didn't mean it that way. What I should have was that this ring, it's much more to me than just an engagement ring." Her soothing voice smoothed away Tidus's edginess, though he still looked at her with his brows furrowed, urging her to go on. "Do you remember the day you proposed to me, when I first put on this ring? That day was the happiest memory I can recall. In all honesty the ring wouldn't have made difference then. All I needed was to hear that you wanted to start a family with me, that we would belong to each other forever. But ever since, this ring carried that sentiment with it, you know? Putting it on every morning just reminds me of that day, which is a nice thing to wake up to when you've only had a couple hours of sleep the night before."

It was Tidus's turn to chuckle. Yuna's nothing if not sentimental – the new hair style she adopted after joining the Gullwings, the Abes logo keeping her top together, the fact that she used two of his swords in her dress spheres, they were all for the sake of her sentiments.

"But that's just it." She spoke again after Tidus's snickering ceased. "I've been so caught up in these little sentiments that I didn't see the bigger picture. Even with the odd tragedy, I had thought that Spira was doing pretty well. I guess I must have been lying to myself. I mean the signs were there, you've seen how many orphans were out there starving while the rest of us enjoyed comfortable homes, professional blitzball, and an endless supply of energy from the Far Plane. I just didn't put it all together, kind of like Yevon and Sin in some ways."

There was nothing but silence in the room aside from the continuous humming of the recently repaired engine as the young couple lied on their backs, eyes glued to the ceiling whilst contemplating what she had just said.

"Yuna, you shouldn't blame yourself. You've been trying the hardest out of everybody to keep the calm going. Believe me Yuna I've lost count of the number of sleepless nights spent on the road or healing dying patients or planning speeches. Remember what you said? You don't want to have children yet because…"

"Because I want to make sure they have the best environment to grow up in." She finished Tidus's sentence, "I think that's why it's hitting me so hard. I've sacrificed so much and tried so hard for the eternal calm just to find out it's just as much of a lie as Yevon's teachings. It really hurts when I think about it you know? Hence last night…"

_You were just trying to forget it all_, Tidus blinked in realization. "I hope it helped." He said through a big grin. He kept his tone as buoyant as he could so that Yuna wouldn't be able to resist the attempt at lightening the atmosphere.

"You know you are terrible right?" Yuna tensely jested back, "just in your jokes, not in bed" she clarified. "Leave it to you to be concerned with your performance in bed when the entire world is spiralling out of control."

"It's because you are Yuna." He stated matter-of-factly.

She smiled and rolled herself onto him, cover and all. There they laid, his chest separated from hers by the thin sheets that wrapped around Yuna's bare body. "I know you think I'm the most beautiful woman in the world, but to worry more about pleasing me in bed than the stability of Spira may be a little too much – though just a little."

"You _are_ the most beautiful woman in Spira – it has nothing to do with what I think. And I'm worried more about pleasing you in bed because you are Yuna and you can do anything, including showing this Nevelyn woman who's the boss."

Quite surprised but also expected flattered by the…compliment, if she could call it that, Yuna's mismatched eyes opened wide and locked with Tidus's ocean blue ones. Sometimes it takes only one person's assurances to make you feel like everything will be okay, all the while the rest of the world churns in its own turmoil.

"Careful, keep pushing all the right buttons and little Tidus won't be just sore." Yuna teasingly warned.

"Then how about we just spend the rest of the morning making out?" He suggested.

The response slightly disappointed Yuna. She had hoped that he would show some fake machismo and take her again then and there, though she still eagerly initiated the kissing without enough hesitation to show her dissatisfaction. She enjoyed their occasional frustrated-teenager-like make out sessions almost as much as she enjoyed sex. Almost.

"You know," Yuna whispered between hot kisses, her tone serious all of a sudden, "once when step out of this room, we are going to have to talk to the others and find a way to deal with all the Children of Sin."

Tidus merely nodded in acknowledgement before again capturing her soft lips with his. And so the couple savoured their fervent kisses, her hands tugged at his handsome blonde hair and his explored every inch of skin on her backside before they tightly gripped her buttocks.

She let out a deep moan from the recesses of her abdomen, _do that again please_, she begged in her mind. The she felt a palm sliding slowing across the small of her back, down to her rear, and finally to that magical place between her legs. Before Yuna realized what he was up to, two fingers teased at her entrance, bringing out a moan from within deeper than her last.

_Click…click…click _a tiny noise came from the direction of the door.

Before Tidus and Yuna could react, Rikku had picked her way past the lock and practically kicked the off its hinges. "Ohhhh, Yunie! I know you are in…" She trailed off as she processed the scene she was walking into on Tidus's bed.

The sheets that once wrapped around Yuna's naked body had been freed by Tidus's hands, one of which compromisingly placed between her legs.

Rikku all but screamed and ran out of the room and Yuna's face turned so bright red that it blended in with the rising sun.

"Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" She angrily yelled at her cousin who was now hiding in the hallway as she herself used a blanket to cover her torso and down.

"Well I wanted to catch you by surprise because I knew you were in there! I expected you two to be cuddling, not…THAT!" Rikku countered just as angrily.

Before the two girls could continue their argument the sound of Wakka's heavy thudding as he approached Tidus's cabin, running hastily from one end of the airship to the other, interrupted them.

He stopped outside the opened doorway, hands on his knees and panting, not even bothering to take in the awkward situation. "Guys…" he stopped to pant some more, "the Youth League headquarters just got destroyed. The news is all over the sphere vision."

A/N: There were a few mistakes that I edited out, and I probably didn't get all of them sorry if they turn you guys off but I have been busy lately and this chapter was kind of rushed. To be honest this is my least favourite chapter and when I finish the entire story I will probably come back here to polish it more. Thanks for those of you who have reviewed, I know that interest on FF X and FF X-2 have died off significantly but this is still fun to write.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Breakfast was a solemn affair. The food aboard the _Ascension_ was well-prepared as always – credits due to the army of hypello that made up the kitchen staff.

Yet no one showed any appetite, not even little Vidina, who was just old enough to realize that the atmosphere was stale with heavy minds. Still, the occasional somewhat forced cooing smiles from Lulu and Yuna would coax him into a bite or two. Lulu counted her lucky stars that her son took after his father – easily distracted and strongly attracted to food.

Rikku – who would have relished in re-telling and embellishing the eye-full she got walking into Tidus and Yuna any other morning – kept her eyes glued to waffles and scrambled eggs that were quickly growing colder and colder.

Her father looked even worse for wear, not even bothering to wash his hands and face clean of the blackened engine grease, the older man was at a loss for words while the wrinkles of age on his face seemed to deepening by the second. Eyes darting between the somber group of former summoner and guardians currently using their silverware to scramble their already scrambled eggs instead of feeding themselves, he made up his mind to say something encouraging.

That was his role after all.

Mouth open and lungs full of air in preparation of a rallying speech, Cid mustered all the positive, headstrong energy and attitude he had.

And not a single word came out.

* * *

Lulu took a paper napkin and wiped Vidina's mouth clean of the mess he has gathered at the corners. He immediately turned his face away in protest – the young child has already developed a feisty side to him. Hands up in defense and face twisted into a tiny pout, Vidina looked determined to suffer no more of his mother's doting. Maybe she would have been a little annoyed by Vidina's antics any other time, but right now she more than appreciated his liveliness.

It also reminded her of how much she stands to lose to the Children of Sin.

If she could only get her hands on Nevelyn right now…

With a firm hand on his wife's shoulder, Wakka assured her that he was thinking the same thing.

Yuna bit down on her bottom lip in quiet contemplation while absent-mindedly taking in the scene mother and child made across the table. Despite herself she smiled genuinely when Wakka stood up behind his family and gave Lulu's shoulder a tiny yet meaningful squeeze.

* * *

Looking down at her hands in her lap, she twisted her engagement ring around its finger with her thumb. One twist, two twists, three twists, and four…

_Don't get all worked up again_, she told herself_. Too many people are depending on you…keep it together._

Though the effects of the anti-magic has mostly worn off, Yuna's magic was still reeling from the lack of nourishment and she was aware of it too. Pushing past her lack of appetite, she fed herself a spoonful of the buttery eggs on her plate before giving one of the hypello kitchen staff a nod of appreciation.

It was the first sign of recognition the staff had gotten during the meal for all their tireless work. And Yuna saw how that lit up the hypello's face. _Maybe I should have another bite_, Yuna said to herself, because even the hypello were not immune to the high summoner's stature. An approval from her would mean so much more than that of any other regular guest.

And so, to everyone's surprise, Yuna was the first among the group to start cleaning her plate, and soon her former guardians followed suit. It was a nice swing towards normalcy, given all that has happened in just a few days.

A loud yawn alerted everyone in the dining hall to Tidus's appearance. Not bothering with the fact that he was turning heads with his entrance, he casually walked chef's booth and grabbed himself a plate and started towards his seat beside Yuna.

Half way the his destination he turned around and hurriedly grabbed another plate, and with a plate in each hand he kept his quickened pace to the table, set down his food, and gave Yuna a light peck on the lips.

Looking quite satisfied with himself, Tidus dug into his breakfast, face and all. Though after his initial spurt of stuffing and swallowing he looked up to see everyone's eyes glued to him.

Giving his friends his best questioning look he gulped back his mouthful.

"What?"

Yuna got up before anyone could ask Tidus about his genial demeanour and danced two fingers across his shoulder as she walked from his right side to his left. She lowered herself down to his expectant lips and kissed him again, this time lingering longer than just a simple "good morning" peck, before whispering in his ear, just loud enough for him to hear but no one else.

"Thank you for being so you."

Then she stood up to her full height again and said more audibly, "Come and see me on the bridge when you are finished here okay?"

After breakfast, everyone went about their day as best as they could. Cid busied himself with his team of maintenance crew and engineers, Rikku told everyone that she had machina to attend to in the equipment bay, and Lulu and Wakka went on to explore the big airship with Vidina. The _Ascension_ itself circled aimlessly around the ocean while Yuna took over as acting Captain, as Cid gladly stepped aside in favour for his niece.

And so Yuna spent her morning on the locating the survivors of the early attack. It started with trying to find Nooj, who has since disappeared – and who could blame him after his entire organization just crumbled under the Children of Sin's pre-emptive strike. For all Yuna knows, they could have sent assassins after him just as they did her.

Then came the sinking feeling that the assassins may have succeeded.

Much to her relief it was Nooj who first got a hold of the _Ascension_. He was visibly disturbed and obviously under stress. His once charismatic aura that garnered so many followers under his Youth League's flag was all but gone. In its place was nothing but a gloomy exterior tempered by an obvious sense of loss.

"Lady Yuna," he struggled with his words, "I'm afraid the damage to the Youth League has been grave. It wasn't only Mushroom Rock. My inner circle of league commanders have also been hit." He took a moment to collect himself, inhaling a calming lungful of air. "I don't know what the Children of Sin have up their sleeves, but the fiends they attacked us with weren't normal – they were strong, probably the strongest fiends I have ever fought."

"They didn't have shimmering body parts did they?" Yuna asked concernedly when upon learning of another fiend attack. If they came after Nooj after coming after her, there was definitely a connection to the Children of Sin.

Picking up the connection she made in her mind, Nooj responded with a slight painful nod.

"Yuna," he voice was darkened with worry, "I don't have to tell you that…that there are spies for the Children among those we call friends. You should think about who you could trust and who you really can't."

The warning was an ominous one to Yuna, but she mentally shook it off. She has complete faith in her guardians ever since the first day she set out on her pilgrimage all those years ago and they have done nothing to deserve anything less.

"I will be fine Nooj, I trust all the people around me."

"Yuna, you can't afford to be so naïve, there are…"

The image on the telesphere suddenly faded out into static. "Lady Yuna, we just lost the signal from Luca. Someone is hijacking the communications aboard the ship." One of the officers on the bridge cried out from his corner seat.

Yuna balled her hands into fists. She hoped that the Children of Sin were not involved in this, but the sinking feeling in her heart told her that her instincts were spot on. Then, right on cue, those chimeric eyes she had prayed not to see appeared in place of Nooj.

"So Lady Yuna, thought you could hide up there in that big ship did you?" Nevelyn asked tauntingly with that signature honey coated voice of hers. "That's just like you, sitting on your high perch while the world below you suffers."

That last remark ignited an anger inside Yuna even she didn't know she possessed. "You don't know me," she lashed out through seething teeth, blood boiling in her veins. "I am going to make you take that back a thousand fold."

"You seem a little out of control, how very un-high-summoner like of you." Nevelyn provoked, "I wouldn't worry about getting your hands on little old me right now." She paused with a devious smile creeping across her face, eyes practically sparkling with excitement. Whatever this conversation was going to lead into, Yuna told herself, it would be another tough fight.

"I thought I almost lost you after our last little heart-to-heart, how convenient of you to open up your communications this morning."

"What are you talking about?" Yuna demanded with imposing absoluteness, she was tired of being toyed with by this woman on the screen.

"I had a show planned for the people of Spira, but it had to be delayed because the star actress disappeared into the sky," she acted out dramatically. "Now that the cast is complete again, allow me to set the stage for you:

"Closing in on your signal right now are two state-of-the-art airship destroyers. Don't even try to run, they are too light and nimble for that cruise liner you got." Nevelyn commanded coldly, "they also brought some friends, and I believe you have already met this big bruiser."

Her image minimized to the upper right corner of the sphere vision, and in its place was a giant serpentine fiend twice the size of the _Ascension_ weaving its way in and out of clouds. It wasn't particularly fast, but the beast looked frighteningly powerful, bearing a dragon-like head adorned with impressive horns that curved inward, forming a semi-circle the size of a sphere pool. Its wingspan was so massive that no cloud could have concealed the entire width of the monster.

And every inch of its body was covered by the shimmering scales that Yuna remember all too well. She knew almost immediately that this was what had sunk the S.S. Liki in mere seconds.

"Lady Yuna, I think it's high time you become properly acquitted with my little pet here. He doesn't have a name yet, but I was hoping he wouldn't need one. There's no use to name something that's about to die, right?"

"You want me to fight that thing?"

"And live to tell the tale afterwards my dear lady. I have complete faith in you, but remember: don't run! Or else I will have to knock your big ship out of the sky the boring way." Nevelyn finished the transmission with a hearty laugh. She was indeed going to enjoy the show – the mighty high summoner and her guardians fighting against her most horrific weapon in gladiatorial combat, what more could one want?

Now, to broadcast the video feed of the upcoming battle to every sphere vision in Spira…

Back on the airship Yuna hurriedly sifted through all the possible outs of her current situation.

"Ma'am, two ships closing fast straight ahead!" the navigation officer called out.

"How long do we have?" Yuna demanded as she silently begged for just a little more time to organize her thoughts.

"They are closing in fast, ten minutes max!"

She has to do something quick. "Is there another signature on the radar?" She desperately asked. The destroyers wouldn't fire on them as long as they don't run and Yuna anticipated her real adversary would have fallen behind because of its colossal size. The question is, how far behind?

"No ma'am, nothing else so far." The navigator shakily obliged.

Just then Tidus burst onto the bridge, a giant star fruit in hand. "Hey Yuna, you have to try this thing, I know you would love it…" She didn't turn to face him like she so often would upon hearing his voice, and judging by how stiff her back appeared to be, Tidus immediately knew something was wrong. Putting the tropical fruit in his hand down by the nearest console, Tidus rushed over to his lover's side. He brought a hand up to her shoulder to in an effort to steady her and to offer some silent support. Her normally soft and creamy skin was unmistakably electric to the touch, hinting at inner turmoil so torrid that she was unleashing ambient magic into the air. Most powerful mage in Spira indeed.

"Yuna, what's the matter?" Tidus urged quietly with a light squeeze with his hand. The action seemed to be welcomed enough, as Yuna's magic ceased to be so tangible around her. She shifted her weight ever so slightly and leaned in towards Tidus's side, the ends of her hair bristling against his bare arm.

Exhaling a breathy sigh, she steeled herself for her next words. "Tell Captain Cid and everyone aboard, we are abandoning ship." She declared, "I will try to buy the lifeboats as much time as possible but everyone needs to get away before that flying monster comes too close."

Tidus opened his mouth as if to ask for some clarification, but Yuna silenced him by placing a reluctant hand on top of his. "I need you go to the loading bay okay? There's not a lot of time to get everyone out of harm's way." She lifted her his hand off her shoulder and unwillingly let it slip away from hers.

"Yuna, does 'everyone' include you?" Tidus sternly demanded. His mind was racing through what has been happening, all he conclude was that something dangerous approaching. He quickly drew his own conclusions, fearing the worst. "Yuna, I'm not letting you face whatever is coming for us on your own! Look, you know I can help you, you know I want to!"

She ignored Tidus's pleading, instead striding over to communications console. The abandon ship alarm has already been sounded and the man in charge of onboard communications was in a heated discussion with a no-doubt animated Cid when she took away the ear piece and clipped it onto her own ear.

"Sorry Uncle Cid, I'm going to have to cut you off. Get to a life boat now, please." She calmly spoke into the microphone. Punching another code in after she hung up, she raised Rikku on the other end. "Hey Rikku, need you to do something."

That did it, Tidus's emotion burst out at the seams. "Listen Yuna! If you think I'm gonna sit back and let you sacrifice yourself, then you don't know me. I thought we were past this kind of stupid heroics!"

Swivelling her head over to his direction, she yelled back with quite a bit of authority "We don't have the room for second guessing right now! Just get to the loading bay." Then, as if remembering who she was talking to, she implored with a softer tone, "Believe in me, okay? We will get out of this. Both of us."

Not knowing what to do, Tidus let Yuna get back to Rikku, hoping that getting out of her hair was the right decision. The lift door swooshed opened before he knew it, and as he entered he turned back to look at Yuna one last time before the door closes.

Yuna seemed to have a strategy for whatever was coming, and a reassuring nod in his direction put his mind a little on ease.

The ride from the bridge at the front of the top level of the _Ascension _to the loading bay at the back end of the bottom half of the ship was a long one, long enough for Tidus to cool down from his earlier outburst. To his surprise Rikku was waiting for him when the elevator opened up again on the loading bay's level. The fiery mechanical guru grabbed his wrist and dragged him off – in the opposite direction of the life boats.

That was a relief, Yuna and Rikku's plan didn't involve him evacuation with the rest of the people aboard. Still he couldn't stop himself from inquiring after being taken aback from Rikku's forcefulness. "Where are you taking me? It would be nice if someone could fill me in."

Rikku whipped him around and sucker punched him in the arm. "You yelled at Yuna. You don't get to yell at Yuna – she's my favourite cousin, got it?" she bellowed.

"Wha…? I thought I was your favourite…"

"Well not anymore! You big meanie!"

He was about to correct her – he didn't think he was being mean exactly, but he was being again dragged along to who knows where.

"Would you move it? There's a giant dragon coming to blow us up and you are dragging your feet in the dirt!" Rikku decried, her tone more impatient than usual. "Move!"

Tidus picked up the pace, the term "giant dragon" pumping some adrenaline into his veins. Soon they came upon a room labelled "maintenance". Rikku took a necklace out from under her blouse and used a key on the end of it to unlock the door. On the back wall, stacked neatly, were several snowboard lookalikes – complete with strap-in bindings for boots. The ends were tapered off and there were two large gears situated a few inches apart in the centre. One side was thick and rounded, gradually thinning out towards the other, which narrowed out as a sharp edge.

"I hope you are ready to fly these – because you've got two airships out there with your sword's name on them." Rikku pointed out as she inspected the devices.

Incredulous, Tidus barely mumbled out the words "F-fly? Those can fly?"

"Yeah, we use them to make emergency repairs to the hull in the air, and now I'm gonna teach you how to use one of them, so listen up."

* * *

Cid stomped onto the bridge not a moment after Yuna finished instructing Rikku on her plan to take out the destroyers.

He was pissed.

And probably rightfully so, considering he left the ship in the hands of his niece for just one morning and she sounded the abandon ship alarm. Amidst the rapid fire of curse words he managed to say something remotely coherent while pointing vehemently at the two destroyers that are now in visual distance.

"Are those guns targetin' my ship? They have got another thing comin' if they think I'm gonna let my dumbass niece give 'er up without a fight!"

"Uncle Cid, be reasonable…"

Yuna had expected this from her uncle. She has already wracked her brain on the different things she could say to him to convince him to let the _Ascension_ go – the ship was just a slow sitting duck. But then again this is Cid's ship…

"If you think the _Ascension_ is jus' some lame cruise ship then you are underestimatin' your uncle." Cid brushed Yuna off, "I'm gonna show you somethin' I saved for those bigots and pirates who think an Al-Bhed is an easy target!"

A little dumbfounded at first, Yuna quickly recovered. "You mean the _Ascension_ has weapons? How come nobody on the bridge told me?" She asked as she scanned the staff in the room.

"That's cuz I didn't tell no one. I trust most of these gold diggers about as far as I can throw 'em." Cid animatedly replied back, not caring one bit about the fact he had just gave most of his crew a backhanded insult. "Now turn us ninety degrees to starboard and keep us ther'! We are gonna give those bastards what they deserve!" Cid ordered.

"Uncle Cid wait, don't fire on those two ships, I've got a plan for them" Yuna beseeched her uncle, "save your guns for the bigger target. Just make sure everyone who's not essential gets off the ship for now."

"What bigger target?"

"You will know it when you see it." Yuna cried out as she left the bridge to her uncle.

* * *

"…now remember, you can give the engines more power if you want to fly faster or climb higher but that takes more fuel. If you start running dry you are going to have to return to the ship to grab a new lifter." Rikku was instructing Tidus while he balanced himself midair when Yuna found them at the loading bay doors.

"Conserve fuel, got it." Tidus acknowledged Rikku's instructions while slowly spinning along the centre of his body.

"Are we ready yet?" Yuna eagerly inquired.

"As ready as we'll ever be."

"You bet." Tidus and Rikku answered simultaneously, he being the more confident one.

"Okay then" Yuna breathed out, "Rikku, open the doors."

Yuna stepped forward as Rikku hurried over to the nearby console and pressed her open palm into Tidus's chest, her eyes glued to his midsection.

"Tidus, I…" Yuna was at a loss for words. This was going to be a dangerous attempt at escaping the noose, there was no doubt. Her plan called for both Tidus and herself out there flying in sky for the first time on equipment built for maintenance rather than for battle. She can't afford to make any mistakes, and neither can he. Confidence wasn't exactly through the roof at this moment, but there weren't any alternatives.

"I'll go first okay? You have longer range than I do." Tidus spoke softly, "cover me when I try to close the distance."

Yuna nodded.

Tidus pressed her forehead into the crook of his neck with a gentle hand. He planted a light kiss on the crown of her head, silently comforting her.

The loading bay door swiveled upward on its hinge as the hydraulics roared to life. This was it.

"You missed." Yuna said quietly, barely audible through the rush of air coming though the new opening.

"I'll make it up to you when we get back. That's a promise." Tidus responded before he jumped out and kicked his lifter into life, leaving a trail of blue electricity as he cut across the sky. He was followed soon by Yuna as Rikku handed her another lifter.

"Good luck!" Rikku shouted after Yuna jumped out.

At this point the two destroyers were hovering on opposite sides of the larger cruise liner. Tidus made a beeline for the one on starboard side.

It didn't take long for the adversary to respond in force. Tracers from its machines guns lit up the blue backdrop, arcing just under Tidus's path. He called the Brotherhood into his left hand and the Caladbolg into his right as he swiftly approached the enemy ship, his aim was to take out the engines on the back.

The other destroyer soon noticed the commotion. Its machine guns out of range, the ship fired three consecutive missiles that homed in on him.

That was when Yuna jumped in with her dual pistols. Rapidly pulling the trigger with both trigger fingers, Yuna kept the missiles in her sights with each shot. Two of them were subsequently destroyed before finding their target, but the final one refused to go down.

Out of ammunition, Yuna holstered both of her guns. Accelerating with her lifter, she positioned herself directly behind the explosive weapon. Concentrating on her magic, she raised her arms straight above her head and brought them down with thunderous power as a bolt of lightning from above struck down the last missile.

Thanking Lulu for Yuna's mastery of black magic, Tidus threw the Brotherhood with as much power as he could muster at the hostile aircraft ahead of him. The pilot responded just in time, dodging out of the way by banking away but at the same time exposing the unprotected belly.

Pushing the lifter to its maximum speed, Tidus dove for the opportunity and buried the Caladbolg deep into the aircraft. Carrying his momentum forward, he sliced a giant gash from mid-hull all the way to the nozzle of the engine at the back. The exhaust exiting the engine sputtered and flames erupted of interior. He flew up and above the sinking destroyer and chucked the Caladbolg into the back to finish it off. Then he summoned more blades into to his hands before throwing them into the inferno for good measure.

One down, one more to go.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Long chapter because I wanted to prepare the story for its second part. And yes, I am really alive after an entire school of no updating this thing, just never got around to doing writing this thing. Not that I was super busy – call it procrastination. Thank you though, to those who came back to this story after I put it on de facto hiatus…

Chapter 13

Sphere visions across all of Spira were now forcedly tuned into the battle that was taking place at this point. Millions of people were sitting on the edge of their seats or standing on the tips of toes being kept in the suspense of the do-or-die predicament their vaunted high summoner was in. They exchanged looks of bewilderment and disbelief, and many feared for her life. Tidus's barrage of swords may have sent one of the destroyers spiralling downwards, but it did little to relieve the tension building up amongst the spectators,

Mutterings of "what if" and "what would happen" spread like wild fire in crowds gathered around the big sphere visions mounted above open squares in large cities like Bevelle and Luca. Uncertainty soon transformed into negativity as the collective body of Spira's citizens was brought to the realization that their high summoner's chances were fading – the _Ascension_ was fast, but nowhere near fast enough to escape the remaining destroyer, and with each passing second, the shimmering gargantuan fiend was getting closer and closer.

The people of Spira, they were afraid.

Yuna dodged and weaved through heavy rocket and machine gun fire. Using her reloaded pistols to shoot down the incoming rockets she couldn't get away from. The pilot of this destroyer seemed to have learned from his fallen partner, keeping his distance by reversing the direction of his engine's thrust and moving side to side erratically so that Yuna can't connect with her more potent attacks.

Tidus wasn't faring much better as he had to recalled sword after sword to fend off the incoming bullets and intercept the rocket fire with sword throw after sword throw. Former guardian and summoner were effectively pinned down.

Then the bridge's communications warned her of her worst case scenario.

The shimmering dragon was within sight range.

Yuna, Tidus, and those aboard the _Ascension_ were now trapped between a rock and a hard place. Should the two of them return to the loading bay and get the _Ascension_ to speed away from the incoming danger, the destroyer would just open fire on the bigger ship's portside and sink her that way.

But staying put, delaying even another minute, would probably mean certain death at the hands of whatever that ungodly thing could do.

Yuna had to come up with a plan B.

"Tidus! Cover my back." She instructed before falling back from behind him. "Uncle Cid, listen to me. Don't fire on that monster! I know what I said before but we need to do something different. Can you take out that other destroyer? It's already on your portside so it shouldn't take too much effort. Also…turn the ship around after you fire."

Cid did his obligatory grunting aimed at not only the conflicting orders, but also being ordered by his niece. Seeing the urgency of the matter, however, he wisely skipped past the speech he had mapped out in his head detailing how this was _his_ ship and _his _secret guns.

"One destroyed destroyer, comin' right up!"

Salvos sounded off from what seemed like a million hidden missile tubes from the portside of the _Ascension_ as trails of white smoke arced towards the aircraft that was still engaging Tidus. It did its best to weave through the incoming fire but one hit led to another and then another, followed by a great final explosion that sent parts scattering outward and downward. Then, as he was told, Cid banked the airship hard to starboard and jammed the rudder to the right.

They were left with little time to celebrate as a deafening roar cut through the battle field. The fiend's shear immensity stopped Tidus right in his tracks. He had not expected to be this proportionally outmatched. The last time he went up against something this big it was his old man in a Sin persona.

A tinge of blue light began coating the dragon's horns. The sphere pool sized cavity held in between those horns filled with electricity, jumping across from one side to another as a vortex formed right in the middle. Gusts of wind swirled into the rapidly growing singularity that shortly began to emit a light so bright that it cast shadows against the midday sun.

Out came another deafening roar, with even more force behind it than the last one. The blinding light suddenly bloated up to fill up the entire cavity that it occupied. Wings fully spread to brace itself, the draconian fiend unleashed its built-up ball of energy in the direction of the _Ascension_.

"Shit!" Cid cried out, "Launch the lifeboats!" he commanded after a brief moment of shock and awe.

"Hold on! Don't launch them yet." Yuna calmly spoke to the bridge. Her voice seemed so calm that it sent chills through Tidus's back. "Just push your engines to maximum and get out of here." She added.

"What are you saying, Yuna? We have to launch the lifeboats now! That attack is going to incinerate every person on the _Ascension_ and there is no way she could get away in time!" he cried out heatedly.

"Just trust me, and…" She paused momentarily, "make sure you catch me."

Leaving Tidus more than a little confused, Yuna pushed her lifter to its fastest speed and burst out in front of the escaping airship. Then she switched out of her gunner dress sphere and into one of the new ones Shinra had developed just for something like this. He had called it "the Adamantine".

_Well, Shinra didn't exactly expect an energy ball the size of a small moon. I hope Tidus doesn't get mad at me for doing this._

Shedding her tank top and shorts for a new suit of armor that was much too heavy for the lifter keeping her in the air, Yuna brought together a pair of giant gothic tower shields that were attached to her armguards. She imparted as much of her magic into the newly formed defence as she could, crusting it a bluish-green projection of its surface. Directing all the available thrust her lifter had straight down, Yuna managed to keep her and her ton of new equipment in position to block the inbound doom ball.

As it connected with Yuna's shield, the perfect sphere deformed at the point of contact. Though first her arms only tingled with the power of the attack, the sensation soon escalated until her forearms, and her entire body for that matter, shook with unbelievable frequency. She could barely withstand the pressure and the heat, not to mention the piercing light that enveloped her.

The metal of the shield began to crack and buckle, but that was expected. For this was no normal metal, all credit going to Shinra once again. The material actually self-replicated when exposed to the life force that flows through the Farplane, which, according to the boy wonder, was similar to the purest form of magic.

As Yuna silently thanked him when the cracks fused together as predicted due to her magic, she also hoped that she had recovered enough in the two days since she was hit with the anti-magic.

From where Tidus stood flying in midair, it was simply an amazing sight. That was his girlfriend putting her body there, in between ultimate destruction and the rest of their friends and family, and she was breaking through. Though at the same time, he was frightened at the mere thought of the effort required to do something so incredible.

The struggle between attack and defence then boiled to a critical point, and in a supernova of an explosion, the energy ball released all of its power in a brilliant spectacle. Millions around Spira simultaneous let out an astonished gasp as the light faded and the image on their sphere visions sharpened back to its proper focus.

They gasped again when the image panned to a falling Yuna. Her lifter had used up all its fuel and she was tumbling head over feet straight towards a lush rain forest below.

Tidus, now realizing what she had meant by "catching her", depowered his lifter and tucked his body into a streamlined form and let gravity take over. He doesn't have much fuel left himself, having done all that maneuvering to avoid being shot out of the sky, but it should be enough slow down his and Yuna's descent if he could catch up to her in time.

Yuna too wrapped her mind around the whole situation, and she reacted accordingly by switching back to her gunner dress sphere before spreading out her limbs in a spread-eagle pose. The wall of air gravity was trying to drag her through immediately hit her hard, knocking the wind out of her lungs.

Barely a second later Tidus had caught up to within arm's reach. He grabbed her shoulder and whipped the length of his body around before wrapping another arm around her waist. He kick started his lifter to its highest output just a split second after the couple disappeared under the dense canopy. The jarring deceleration might have stopped them from the body-crushing landing with the ground, but when Tidus glanced a tree branch, the blow was still hard enough for him to lose his grip on Yuna. With her weight suddenly gone, the lifter easily afforded Tidus a soft landing.

But Yuna wasn't so lucky. Her body headed straight for another branch, which while absorbing a lot of her momentum, still bounced her off with a jolt. What stopped her from crashing directly into the ground was the thickest branch in the vicinity. It delivered a shattering blow to her midsection as she went from break-neck speeds to a sudden stop. The branch itself barely flinched.

The pain was so devastating that even when she rolled off and landed on her side onto the hardened soil, all Yuna did was to draw her body up to her knees and clutch her stomach with both hands to desperately dull the agony with her white magic. To her dismay, she found that there was little magic left within her.

Head bowed down and eyes squeezed shut, she let out a blood-curdling scream. Her vision was out of focus, her hearing was dull, and her sense of balance was shot as all she could focus on was the pain emanating from her centre. Her entire body broke a cold sweat and the moisture clung to her due to the humidity in the atmosphere. She vomited, still yet to regain her senses. The contents of her stomach now on display on the forest floor was mixed with the blood from what was probably a thousand ruptured blood vessels.

Then Yuna's vision went black and she lost consciousness.

Tidus rushed over to her side and managed to catch her body as she collapsed. He frantically searched for a pulse around Yuna's trachea, and to his relief he found it. Her heartbeat was shallow and quick but slowed down ever so gradually as adrenaline faded and endorphins took over. Taking stock of her injuries, he found that amongst the many scraps, cuts, and bruises, her midriff was showing a deep purple and swollen to the touch.

His condition was better, but not by much. The glancing blow that knocked Yuna out of his arms had broken his collar bone and more than one rib on the same side. As bad as that sounded however, Tidus pushed the pain on the back of his mind. He laid Yuna's head onto his thigh while directing his attention upwards.

The _Ascension_ had sped away from the shimmering fiend, which had decided not to give chase, likely because it had to recharge and because it was too slow.

Tidus's connection to the bridge came to life with a bombardment of different voices. Lulu, Wakka, Rikku, and Cid all anxiously cried out asking if he and Yuna were okay.

"Guys," he struggled to speak out, "we are fine. Just a little banged up but we'll live. Don't worry about us and focus on getting away from that monster."

"Thank goodness," Lulu said, ignoring his last request about getting away, "we'll double back as soon as the skies are clear."

"No! Look, just stay in the air. Don't communicate with long range signals and don't do anything predictable." Tidus instructed the older woman, "Besides, I just realized something. If that fall we took had you worried, I would imagine that the Children of Sin and that Nevelyn woman would think we were dead too. That give us an advantage that we haven't had since this thing started."

Lulu paused for a while, then chuckled a little. "You've grown quite a bit from your guardian days, Tidus. Very well, we are going to go about pretending you are dead."

A short burst of three beeps indicated that the Tidus was coming out of range of the _Ascension_, so he said his and Yuna's goodbyes to the rest of his friends safely flying above and turned his attention back down. He currently had very little idea about their whereabouts or the direction of the closest settlement, town, or city. It was also getting really hard for him to breath as each lungful of air stung from the swelling taking place around his broken ribs. There was nothing he could do about that at the moment, so he just told himself to tough it out.

He also needed to take the weight of his arm off of his broken collar bone. Luckily he was no stranger to some emergency first aid. Wiggling out of his shirt, he fashioned the piece of clothing into a makeshift sling. Wrapping it around the entire length of his disabled arm and tying a knot on the other side of his neck with the help of his mouth, Tidus effectively took away the stress on the fractured bone, bringing about some relief.

Then he scanned the surrounding area for anything they could use as a shelter. There was little hope they would be able to cover any ground while the sun was still up, lack of direction notwithstanding. A nice place to hide from the elements and any opportunistic fiends or wild animals would afford them some much needed rest. He had learned from Yuna's pilgrimage that forests like this were likely fed by large rivers – and where there is a lot of running water, there would be caves.

Or at a large gash in the exposed bedrock not a hundred feet away.

It wasn't a cozy cave, but it was the next best thing. The rock above jutted outward and drooping over the hanging ledge were overgrown roots that weren't spaced so sparsely apart. At first the opening was narrow, but it looked like it rounds a corner and opens up high enough for Tidus to stand at full height. Under the rocky ceiling there were plenty of smaller pebbles, dried leaves, and twigs – everything someone needed to kindle a fire.

His mind set on what the next step was, Tidus lifted Yuna's head gently with his good arm, sat up, and snaked his arm around her body before getting his feet under him. Next he had to exert himself a little to get into a standing position with Yuna's weight attached to him, but thankfully managed to do so with minimal grievance from his ribs. He would have to drag Yuna's boots on the soil but it wasn't like he had any other way to get her to where they needed to go.

Her limp body was a stark contrast to the power he had felt from her in what seemed just a blink of an eye ago. As he lugged her the one hundred feet he couldn't help but to feel a build up of frustration at the fact he was the one in better shape. _I had always dreamed about our wilderness getaway, _a little voice said in his head,_ and now it's really happening! I am so grateful I have a working arm too._

When he finally rounded the corner under the rock he found a nice crook in the wall to lean Yuna against. Then he went about to gather all the dried twigs and leaves he could and placed them in the centre of a fire pit he had fashioned with scattered pebbles. He also cleaved off a few larger branches that he could with his swords, intending to feed them into the fire once it got going.

After that Tidus set out to find a source of drinkable water – a river of some kind – before the sun went down. There was definitely the unmistakable sound of free flowing water nearby – a sound he had come to know well thanks to the pilgrimage, and it didn't take him long to identify the source. The stream was a clear and serene one. Tidus cupped his hands and sampled the cool water and decided it was perfect.

Now to get the water from the stream to where it was needed. He looked around for something to help him carry the water but nothing looked like it would hold. He had to be creative.

Summoning the Brotherhood to his usable hand, he dug the tip as far into the ground as he could. Dragging the sword behind him, tip still buried into the soil, he created an improvised canal from the stream all the way to his crude shelter. There he dug a hole big enough to hold enough water he was happy with. Then he covered the canal and the well with leaves so that the soil below doesn't mix with the water itself. Finally he connected the stream of water with his new creation, allowing water to course the leaf-covered channel.

He was fortunate enough that the terrain was fairly level. The water's pathway wasn't impeded by any bumps and the top of well he had dug was just level with the stream itself so that no water overflowed. As he admired his work with mild pride the sun began to set in the western horizon. He hadn't finished a moment too soon. Now all that's left for him to do was starting the fire – which he needed some flint stones for.

Or maybe just two steel swords. Smiling inwardly, Tidus walked back to settle for the night.

* * *

"Uhhh…" Yuna grumbled. Her senses were coming about. She could hear Tidus fumbling about and feel the warmth of the setting sun on her cheek. The redden rays of light stimulated her eyes, bringing about a twitch in her shut eyelids. Her head still feels foggy as she struggled to piece together what had happened before she had lost consciousness. The tug of pain from her abdomen certainly clued her in. Her throat was parched and her body was drenched in at three layers of sweat from head to toe.

"Hey," Tidus rushed over to her side and whispered, "how you feeling?"

_Good question_, Yuna thought, _how am I feeling?_ She was still just starting to get a hold of her own body. "Thirsty" she groaned quietly.

"Hold on," he told her, turning around to cup some water from the little well he had made and carefully bringing back to where Yuna sat. "Here, lean forward a little and tilt your head back." Yuna did as she was told and was greeted with a mouthful of cold water. The shock cleared the fog in her brain, allowing her to finally open her eyes and take in her surroundings.

"Where…where are we?"

"I don't know, it looks like a tropical forest. I don't know where to go to get back to civilization." Tidus answered jovially, throwing back his good arm behind him to support his weight and pointed in the direction of the stream of water with a tilt of his head. "I was hoping we could just follow that stream after we rest up a bit."

Yuna simply nodded and scooted further up the rock face she was leaning upon. "Tidus, your arm…"

Tidus rushed to cut her off, "Ooooh no, nuh-uh. You are not using whatever healing magic you have on me"

"Just let me…" She ended her sentence abruptly. Getting caught up in the conversation she must have leaned too far forward, too fast and had to involuntarily grimace through her teeth. "Okay I see your point." She resigned, sitting back into a less painful position. The agony of her abdominal injury was coming back with a vengeance after being temporarily subdued by unconsciousness and pain-killing hormones.

She lifted the hem of her top gingerly, revealing an almost uniformly bruised patch stretching from side to side. Then she pressed a careful palm into the tender skin, threw her head back to let out a grimace once again, and blinked back a tear. Closing her eyes she concentrated her healing magic on to the same palm and channeled it onto her internal injuries, expelling a soft glow. As the glow intensified, the tension on her face visibly softened. When it was finally over, the light bloomed and faded and Yuna relaxed, sighing in relief.

"Lucky for you I think I still have just enough left in the tank for that arm of yours." She said after a brief moment of beautifully pain-free silence. Tidus gave her a skeptically look, to which she rolled her eyes and moved to lie down on her back and started doing sit-ups. "See? I'm fine! You've seen me heal worse injuries when I was barely a summoner." She added matter-of-factly after she came up for her tenth sit up.

"Yuna, you were out like a log just five minutes ago. Even if you do have the magic to heal me I think you should take it easy for now." Tidus voiced his concern.

"It was quite restful being out like a log, thank you very much. Now just stay still." Yuna determinedly countered while scooting over to Tidus's wounded side. Then she noticed something was off. "Your ribs…" At which point she forcedly squeezed her hands in between his ribcage and biceps. She walked her fingers from his backside to his sternum. Her fingertips were so cold that she left a trail of goose bumps and tickled a little – until she dug into the part where his ribs had cracked.

"Ow!" He cried out, jumping out of her hold, reflexively putting about five feet between himself and Yuna.

"You are such a baby, now come back here. I need to be precise with my healing so I don't waste my magic."

Tidus didn't budge, "Yuna, you need some proper rest. You used up all your magic that you got back after that anti-magic thing with your new dress sphere and now you are gonna drain yourself again! You looked like you were going to die after landing on that branch! Can't you just take it easy for one night?" He objected lividly.

Yuna blankly stared into his wavering pupils fishing for the reasons why he was so animated. He was angry and frustrated at the fact she was pushing herself too far, but she also suspected that wasn't all of it. "Okay, I will take it easy for tonight," she relented, her voice even and soothing, "now would you come back here and sit with me? The sun's setting and it's getting pretty chilly."

Tidus probably could have left it at that and complied with Yuna's request, but he didn't. "I see what you are doing, trying to redirect the conversation – it's not going to work. I know I promised Lulu I would support you no matter what but you are making it really hard."

Yuna didn't respond. The only thing she did was to draw her knees up to her chin and hug her shins in an effort to brace herself for the oncoming evening air – and whatever Tidus had to say next.

"I don't mean to be, you know…mean, but sometimes I wish," Tidus paused, his voice hitching as he struggled out his next words.

"Sometimes I wish I had a normal girlfriend."

A little part of him immediately regretted what he had just said, but he couldn't stop himself from piling it on. "You do these things, Yuna. Things like staying up for so long that you fall asleep standing up, or fighting off those mercenary assassins all by yourself, or planning crazy ways to put yourself in danger so that everyone else can stay safe.

"I'm…I'm not saying that you were wrong to put your friend and family first, but there could have been other ways to get out of those situations. You could have let Cid launch the lifeboats back there. Sure the _Ascension_ would have been sunk, but everyone would still be safe and you wouldn't have almost died!"

"And then what? The lifeboats will be scattered all over this forest – easy pickings for the Children of Sin. What if they get their hands on Lulu and Wakka and Vidina? Or Rikku and Cid? I had to give them the best chance of escape. You know that…" Yuna answered coolly, the only inflection in her voice was on the last sentence. Her eyes didn't meet his for a second, she just pointed them at a patch of dirt on the ground between her boots.

"You are forgetting the fact Lulu and Wakka were both guardians six years ago! They can take care of themselves. Rikku was your guardian too, and she helped you dismantle Vegnagun! You could have trusted our friends with their own safety instead of being so damn suicidal."

"So…that's what you mean by normal?" Yuna questioned, her voice was barely a whisper. "You…you just want me to be a selfish person? Normal, huh…I've known you for six years and I always thought you felt differently."

"See, that's the thing. I'm beginning to realize you are a selfish person and that's what's bothering me." Tidus retorted.

"What do you mean?" Yuna meekly demanded after a long period of silent contemplation.

"Well…" Tidus started his long-winded explanation. "You work so damn hard all the time to create this perfect world for everyone you hold dear and the thought of anything being wrong with that utopia makes you push yourself that much harder.

"It's like you are afraid that your perfect world could become an impossibility if those you are close to are endangered, so you put your life on the line when they are in trouble. That way if you fail then you won't have to deal with the loss, but if you put your faith in someone you love and they fail…"

"I get it!" She had to cut him off there, unsure if what he had said was true but unable to let him finish.

"Yuna, you have stop trying to save the world all by yourself, let other people take some of the risks." Tidus implored, "If we lose you…if I lose you, it would suck the life out of me, Yuna. I can't bare losing you than you can me."

"You talk as if you feel I don't trust you, but you are the person I trust the most in the world." Yuna muttered, finally turning to meet his eyes with her trembling pupils. A breeze blew by right then, sending a chill rippling throughout Yuna's body compounded by the cold sweat that still clung to her because of the humid air refused to lift it away. And though she reflexively tucked her legs tighter inward and rubbed her hands on her arms to stave off the chill, it was unable to distract her from the wrench in her gut telling her this was one of those conversations that could break their relationship.

"I trusted you to catch me today, and you did. What more do you want to from me?" she stubbornly asked.

"That's not the point I'm trying to make here." Tidus argued. His voice was rising and he was clearly losing his patience. "What I'm saying is that you had other options that don't lead to a free fall from cruising altitude. I was just barely in time today. I might even be lucky next time and the time after that, but one day I won't be."

There were points in his last argument where he had raised his voice to volumes he had never used to speak with Yuna before. Not even in their previous fights did Tidus become this emotional, and what he had expected to follow was a shouting match that would last for the entire night. This was something he had felt strongly about, and damn it he was going to convince her even if it took all the time in the world.

But instead of matching his emotional outburst, she just mumbled out a single "okay" and flashed him a genuine, warm smile.

"What?" Tidus was too stunned to comprehend.

"Okay…I'll start doing things your way. I won't pull crazy stunts like I did today anymore unless I really have to, and I won't shoulder all the risk so everyone else can get away safely." Yuna capitulated, "now would you please come sit back down here? I'm really cold."

"That's…it? No big argument…"

She gave him a tired look and rolled her eyes at his incredulity. She gesture the patch of open ground beside her to get him to finally sit down, and when he did Yuna tucked her knees under her and leaned into his body.

"You know, I miss doing this all the time back on Besaid, when you first reappeared and it felt like we had all the time in the world." Yuna whispered dreamily, "Not the yelling, but just the two of us watching the sun setting."

"Yeah…it's been a while since we sat down on the beach and did nothing except enjoy the sunset hasn't it." Tidus reciprocated.

"Well, it wasn't always _nothing_ except watching the sunset." She teasingly corrected, then giggled a little. "You were right, I have been reckless lately…and I was _this_ close to being splattered on the ground."

"It would be a really pretty splatter." He jokily jabbed back and was greeted by a small bout of laughter and a hard nudge on his good shoulder.

"Not funny, and honestly," she began to confess, "I can't even imagine you watching the sunset on a beach alone, I want to be there with you and watch as many sunsets as we can. So yeah, from now on, I promise to be more responsible with myself. Now what do you say we get a fire started, rest for tonight, and kick some ass once we get out of here tomorrow."

"That's my girl." He triumphantly declared as he rose from his sitting position once again. Summoning one of his swords to his good hand he drove it into the ground near the stack of kindle he had prepared. Then with another sword he struck the first one repeatedly, sending sparks streaking across the dusk sky. His method was clumsy at best, but he though with enough perseverance the kindle would ignite eventually.

Until Yuna lost control of her giggling in the background.

"That's never going to work." She stated as she walked up behind him to wrap an arm around his waist. Her other hand gently grasped his sword hand and lowered it. "I know I agreed to take it easy, but I think we could really use a tiny bit of fire magic right now."

After Tidus gave one last strike with his swords he dismissed both of them to clear the way for Yuna. And, with a snap of the finger, the stack of twigs and mulch lit up at its core.


End file.
